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THE YEAR’S BEST DAYS 


FOR BOYS AND GIRLS 


BY 

ROSE HARTWICK THORPE 

H 

AUTHOR OF “CURFEW MUST NOT RING TO-NIGHT ” 


“/ count this thing to be grandly true: 

That a noble deed is a step toward God.” 

Holland. 


BOSTON 1889 


LEE AND SHEPARD Publ'i 



IO MILK STREET NEXT THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE 


NEW YORK CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 

718 AND 720 BROADWAY 



Copyright, 1888, by Lee and Shepard. 


All rights reserved. 


The Year’s Best Days. 


f* i 

V *'# 

'V 




CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introduction ^ 

The Year’s Best Days ... - 

v * * ' * ' 

Christmas Day 9 

Santa Claus l r 

Two Christmas Eves 

Christ’s Birthday 39 

The Christmas Doll 56 

What Santa Claus brought 59 

Valentine’s Day 61 

A Little Girl’s Valentine 63 

Auntie May’s Valentine 77 

February 87 

Easter Day 89 

One Flower for Nelly 91 

Was it an April Fool? 103 

Easter Flowers of Texas 113 

Thanksgiving Day 115 


4 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 


Ted and Tot’s Thanksgiving Dinner . . . . 117 

A Thanksgiving Pie; or, How Charlie kept the 

Golden Rule 133 

Where is Polly? 144 

Other Days 147 

An Impromptu Birthday Party 149 

Floy’s Birthday 159 

A Noble Deed and its Reward 167 

Six Little Girls: their Dreadful Adventure, 180 

Mamma’s Bread-winners 192 

The Queen’s Gift 194 

Drifted out to Sea 199 


INTRODUCTION. 


That day is best wherein we give 
A thought to others’ sorrows; 
Forgetting self, we learn to live, 
And blessings born of kindly deeds 
Make golden our to-morrows. 

R. H. T. 


San Diego, Cal., May, 1888. 



THE YEAR’S BEST DAYS 


When winter winds blow drearily, 

And shake the snowflakes down ; 

When winter fires bum cheerily. 

The year puts on its crown, — 

Its Christmas crown of mistletoe, 

Pine boughs, and holly-leaves; 

And earth is filled to overflow 
With joy that dear Love weaves. 

For while the best days come and go, 
Still Christmas Day is best, you know. 

When all out doors is quivery, 

And neither brown nor green, 

Nor hot nor cold, — just shivery, 

A dreary spell between, — 

Comes jolly old St. Valentine’s, 

With hearts and Cupid wings, 

And flowers and birds, and pretty rhymes, 
And jokes and other things : 

’Tis then we bow at Love’s behest, 

And crown St. Valentine the best. 

7 

* 


8 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


When spring comes slowly dallying 
By brooklets fringed with green, 

When first recruits come rallying 
About their gold-haired queen, 

When the dead year is thrilled with life 
That throbs through hill and dell, 
When joy and bursting bud are rife, 

The Easter anthems swell ; 

From human heart and feathered throat 
The songs of love rise note on note. 

When autumn smileth gloriously 
Through all his mellowed haze, 

And in warm tints, victoriously, 

His garnered wealth displays ; 

Buds, slow unrolled in perfect bloom, 
Bloom lost in fruit and grain. 

Expand, O human heart ! Make room, 
Thanksgiving comes again ! 

Make room for love and joy and praise ; 
Thank God for all the year’s best days ! 


CHRISTMAS DAY 

Hang up the children's stockings, ■ 

And ring the happy chimes, 

For peace and love should reign on earth 
In merry Christmas times. 


THE YEAR’S BEST DAYS 


SANTA CLAUS 

“Please, sir, be you Santa Claus?” 

The child’s voice rang out, shrill and eager, 
on the crisp, evening air ; and J. P. Fernald, sen- 
ior member of the firm of Fernald & Co., turned 
and looked down into the little animated face, 
uplifted with an anxious inquiry shining in the 
large, dark eyes, made larger, and seemingly 
darker, by want and hunger. 

“Santa Claus, — I — ha! ha! that is a joke,” 
laughed Mr. Fernald good-naturedly, viewing 
the immense bundle in his arms, from which 
protruded a doll’s foot through an opening in 
the paper that enveloped it ; and the general 


ii 


12 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


uneven surface of the package bore a wonderful 
resemblance to Santa Claus’s mysterious package. 

“Well, my little man, it does look like it, I 
confess ; but how did you find me out ? ” 

“ Oh, sir ! ” cried the child, with an expression 
of rapt admiration on his small, pinched face, 
bringing both thin little hands together 
delightedly as he spoke, “ I knew you in a 
minute, ’cause you look just like your picture in 
the toy-shop windows. There’s the long white 
whiskers, an’ the white hair, an’ the fur cap, an’ 
the great overcoat, an’ the bundle of toys you’re 
a-goin’ to give to the rich children to-night. I 
said I’d know Santa Claus the minute I set 
eyes on him ; an’ I did, sir I couldn’t mistake 
you anywhere. I’ve stood on the corner here 
ever so long a-waitin’ for you to come. I knew 
you’d be a-comin’ down this street sure ; ’cause the 
rich children live here, an’ you never miss them.” 

The child talked rapidly, excitedly, the words 
fairly tripping over each other, catching his 


SANTA CLAUS 


13 


breath between the sentences, as though fright- 
ened at his boldness in addressing so great a 
personage as Santa Claus. 

“ And why did you wish to see me, my little 
man ? ” said Mr. Fernald in a very gentle tone, 
taking both little blue-veined hands in one of 
his great warm palms. 

“ I jist wanted to tell you where we live, sir. 
I guess you don’t know, ’cause you never find 
us; an’ Tom, — Tom’s my big brother, — he’s 
most twelve years old, an’ helps ma lots. He 
earns much as twenty cents some days, an’ ma 
don’t know how she’d ever get ’long ’thout 
Tom. Well, Tom says ’at you don’t care one 
bit about the poor little children ; that you’d 
just as lief they’d starve on Christmas Day as 
not ; but ’deed, sir, you must ’skuse Tom, he 
works so hard, an’ gets tired, ’n’ cross. He 
ain’t one bit to blame, Tom ain’t : he’d like 
you ever so much, if he only knew you. When 
I looked at your picture in the toy-shop win- 


14 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


dows, I said to myself, ‘ Bobby Brown, don’t 
you ever believe it of Santa Claus. He does 
care for all the little children, only he don’t 
know where to find you, that’s all.’ Was I 
right, sir ? ” 

“I think you were, my boy. I certainly do 
not know where you live.” Mr. Fernald’s voice 
was strangely unsteady ; for the child’s trusting 
faith in Santa Claus, who had never brightened 
a Christmas for him, touched the rich man’s 
heart as it had not been touched for years. 

“ I’ll tell you where I live, an’ how many 
there are of us, an’ — an’ every thing,” cried 
Bobby breathlessly. “I’ll ’splain the way to 
get there, so’t you can’t possibly ’stake the 
place. My, won’t Nelly be glad ’t you found 
us ! I won’t tell Tom ’t I hinted, ’cause he’d 
say it wasn’t perlite of me to do it. But you 
see, sir, I just couldn’t let this Christmas go 
by ’thout finding you, ’cause Nelly — Nelly’s a 
little thing, sir, only five last summer. I’m 


SANTA CLANS 


15 


a whole year older’ n Nelly ; an’ Nelly’s been 
talkin’ an’ talkin’ ’bout a Christmas dolly ; an’ 
she really an’ truly thinks you’ll bring her one, 
an’ it makes poor ma cry to hear her tell ’bout 
the doll she’s a-goin’ to get. You won’t forget 
the doll for Nelly, sir ? ” 

“ Indeed, I’ll not forget the doll,” replied Mr. 
Fernald, writing something in a little book that 
he took from his pocket. “ Step into this store 
with me, my boy. It will be more comfortable 
for you while we consult about this matter. I 
see that your clothes are thin.” 

“Yes, sir: they wear out faster’n ma can 
mend ’em,” said Bobby in confusion, remember- 
ing the great hole that let his pink knee 
through, showing conspicuously right under 
Santa Claus’s very eyes. But he forgot the 
hole and his embarrassment the moment they 
were in the store ; and Santa Claus stood 
ready, pencil in hand, to make a list of their 
names, ages, and various requirements. 


1 6 THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 

It was a trying position for a little fellow like 
Bobby, standing in front of that wonderful 
being, but he did his duty bravely. 

“ Little Paul ain’t quite four, sir,” he said 
earnestly, “an’ I guess he’d like some candy 
best of any thing ; and maybe, if it isn’t too 
much, an orange. Oranges be awfully good ’n’ 
juicy. I had a taste of one once, what was 
a-stickin’ to the peel, somebody’d throwed away, 
an’ wasted. You’ll remember little Paul, sir?” 

“Yes, I’ve got him down. Now, who else?” 

“There’s Tom, sir. Tom is such a good 
brother, an’ has to be out in the cold all day. 
I do wish ’at Tom could have some warm 
mittens ; an’ his shoes are ’most gone, but I 
guess the mittens ’ll do. He’ll be awfully glad 
’n’ thankful to get ’em. Is Tom’s name down ? ” 

“Yes, Tom’s name is down.” 

Mr. Fernald looked up, waiting for the child 
to continue his requests. 

“That’s all, sir, ’ceptin’ ma, an’ she needs 


SANTA CLAUS 


7 


’most every thing ; but I wouldn’t wonder if she 
needs a shawl most.” 

“ And you, my little man ; is there nothing 
you especially desire ? ” 

“ No, sir : I don’t need any thing. I’ll be so 
glad to see the rest, an’ I’ll have my secret 
’bout meetin’ you for my Christmas, you know. 
Oh, it ’ll be the very jolliest Christmas ever was ; 
an’ won’t ma wonder, an’ wont Tom be s’prised, 
an’ won’t Nelly dance about, and won’t Paul’s 
eyes pod out ! I guess ’at Tom ’ll change his 
’pinion ’bout you pretty quick, sir.” 

Bobby nodded his flaxen head emphatically, 
and his eyes twinkled like stars. 

“ Now tell me where you live, Bobby.” The 
warm glow in the rich man’s heart began to 
.burn and tingle through all his massive frame. 
He had been interviewed on all sorts of subjects, 
— political economy, and railroad schemes, and by 
real estate syndicates ; but he had never experi- 
enced such queer sensations as beset him while 


1 8 THE YEA R 'S BEST DA YS 

Bobby’s wide, earnest eyes regarded him with 
such devout admiration. 

Bobby gave the directions minutely. Then 
Mr. Fernald bade him “ good-night,” and I doubt 
if there was a happier child in all the land than 
Bobby Brown that Christmas eve. 

Mr. Fernald then retraced his steps, visiting a 
clothing establishment, a shoe-store, a toy-shop, 
the butcher’s, the baker’s, the grocer’s ; and at 
each place, after giving his order, and settling 
the bill, he requested that the purchases be sent 
early in the morning to a certain address, and 
left at Mrs. Brown’s door with Santa Claus’s 
compliments. 

Bobby Brown tossed restlessly on his bed that 
night, for how could the little fellow sleep with 
such a wonderful, exciting secret on his mind ? 
At every sound he started nervously, and lis- 
tened attentively until the sound had ceased. 
Toward morning he fell asleep, and was only 
awakened by Tom kindling a fire in the old stove. 


SANTA CLAUS 


19 


“ Has he come yet?” exclaimed Bobby, spring- 
ing out of bed. 

“Who?” asked Tom. 

But Bobby hid his confused little face, and 
pretended to be very busy about his scant 
wardrobe. He felt chagrined that he had so 
nearly betrayed his precious secret. 

Mrs. Brown, with a troubled sigh, put the 
last potato in the oven, wondering from whence 
the dinner for those hungry little mouths was to 
come. This was always a matter of speculation 
with her, since it rarely happened that the end 
of one meal found any thing left over for the next. 

Presently there came a knock at the door. 

“ It’s him,” cried Bobby, forgetting all caution, 
as he sprang to open the door. 

“ Here’s a basket for the Widow Brown, that 
Santa Claus sent from the grocery, with his 
compliments,” said the man, thrusting a large 
basket in at the door, and disappearing before a 
question could be asked. 


20 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


Mrs. Brown had but just regained her breath, 
which she had lost in the surprise of the 
moment, and had not regained her voice, when 
another rap, rap, sounded on the door, and an- 
other basket was thrust in. 

“From the bakery, with Santa Claus's compli- 
ments,” called out the man briskly, slamming the 
door behind him. 

And such a basket of good things as that one 
proved to be. Sugared cakes and fluffy rolls 
and slender ladies’ fingers and cream cookies, — 
was ever such a generous Santa Claus as theirs ? 
The children stood about in wide-eyed wonder, 
until little Paul broke the spell by snatching a 
handful of brown ginger-cakes. 

“ Santa Claus’s compliments,” announced a 
voice at the door ; and a large bundle, that con- 
tained good stout shoes for the children all 
around, with a pair for the mother, and a note 
within informing her that if there was any misfits 
they could be exchanged where the purchase was 


SANTA CLANS 


21 


made, was tossed into the room, just escaping 
the grocery basket ; and before the door was 
closed, more packages followed. 

By this time the two youngest members of 
the family were scampering about the room in 
the wildest delight. Tom stood with the stove- 
handle in one hand, in open-mouthed astonish- 
ment, a perfect picture of surprise. Mrs. Brown 
sank into a chair ; and with clasped hands and 
tearful eyes viewed the presents that seemed 
literally to shower down upon them, and which 
meant so much of real comfort and happiness for 
her little family. Bobby alone maintained a 
serene composure : he was not at all surprised 
at the generous display before him. Nor did he 
cease to regard the door expectantly until the 
doll and the candy, together with other surprises 
and toys not mentioned by him in his con- 
versation with Santa Claus, had made their 
appearance. 

“ Where did they all come from ? ” gasped 


22 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


Mrs. Brown in perplexity. “ There must be some 
mistake.” 

“No, there aint,” cried Bobby emphatically: 
“Santa Claus sent ’em.” 

“ But there’s no such a person as Santa Claus, 
Bobby.” 

“Yes, there is: I saw him last night. Looks 
just ezackly like his own picture,” said Bobby 
decidedly, trying a new jack-knife that had his 
name on a card attached to the handle, which 
made it his individual property. “There’s the 
boss stuff in it,” he said approvingly, as he 
sent a long pine shaving across the room with 
one vigorous stroke of his hand. “I told him 
where we lived, an’ he said he’d try to find us 
this year.” 

“ Who could it have been ? ” murmured the 
bewildered mother. 

“ Santa Claus, of course,” said Bobby im- 
patiently. “ He’s a jolly old man.” 

And Mr. Fernald, as he placed a diamond 


SANTA CLANS 


23 


ring on the finger of one granddaughter, after 
bestowing a small fortune in the way of pres- 
ents upon the younger children, thought of the 
humble home his bounty had blessed ; while an 
undercurrent of tenderness, a sort of kindly 
consideration for all humanity, stirred the depths 
of his old heart into keener enjoyment of the 
Christmas pleasures than he had experienced 
for years. 

“ It pays to be Santa Claus,” he soliloquized. 
“ It pays in here,” laying his hand over the 
place where a kind heart throbbed beneath ; 
“ and I believe I will make general Santa Claus 
of myself next year, for the benefit of poor 
little children whom the usual Santa Claus fails 
to find.” 


TWO CHRISTMAS EVES 

A STORY FOR YOUTH AND AGE 

The flames glowed and danced and crackled 
in the wide-mouthed fireplace, leaping in joyous 
glee o’er the rugged side of the great yule-log 
that had been seasoning for months in anticipa- 
tion of the “ Merry Christmas time.” 

How cosey and cheerful the best room at the 
“old red farmhouse” seemed on that Christmas 
eve, with muslin curtains, fresh from the laun- 
dry, looped back from the low windows, and 
tied with strips of scarlet cambric (they were 
too poor for ribbons, and Agnes declared that 
one could never have told the difference without 
a close inspection). 

Farmer McLane believed in letting the light 
of his pleasant home shine out into the night 


24 


TWO CHRISTMAS EVES 


25 


to cheer the passers by, consequently the sitting- 
room curtains were seldom drawn over the 
windows. 

What a jolly time the children were having 
in the great room, playing “blindman’s buff,” 
and “ pussy wants a corner,” sending forth lusty 
shouts of glee at the awkward attempts of the 
elder portion of the family, who were, appar- 
ently, vainly attempting to learn the games ; 
and how could these little ones know that those 
games had been handed down from generation 
to generation, and were much older than dear 
old grandma herself, having been played by that 
venerable dame in her own happy childhood. 

Brother Dan was industriously employed in 
the pleasant occupation of driving a row of nails 
on either side of the fireplace, and later on 
each nail would hold a small stocking in a con- 
venient position for Santa Claus to drop his 
yearly remembrances in. Father would see that 
the fire was entirely extinguished, before retir- 


2 6 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


in g, so that the dear old man would not burn 
his feet when he made his eventful visit. 

Dear me! the Christmas-trees and the small 
round stove-pipes have about crowded the jolly 
fellow off from the stage of action these later 
days. 

They were all too intently interested in the 
noisy game to notice the small, pinched, eager 
face at the window ; but the firelight saw it, 
and flashed little waves and ripples of glory 
over it, and sputtered and crackled uproarously 
in its efforts to draw their attention from the 
game, that they might discover the little stran- 
ger without. Failing in this, the flames leaped 
higher and higher, laughing merrily among 
themselves, just to show the forlorn child how 
happy a fire could be, extending their bright 
arms in a warm invitation to her, and nodding 
and beckoning most frantically for her to 
enter, and join the frolicsome children in their 
sport. 


TWO CHRISTMAS EVES 


2 7 


“Well, well,” said Farmer McLane presently, 
wiping the perspiration from his flushed and 
heated brow. “You youngsters have tired me 
completely out, and no mistake.” 

He walked toward the window as he spoke, 
and the fire fairly roared in delight, for the 
genial, hospitable fire knew that he would now 
see the little stranger ; and future events would 
be perfectly safe in Farmer McLane’s kindly 
hands, as the fire knew by past experience. 
Therefore the ruddy flames did their best to 
reveal the wee pinched face at the window. 

The moment that Farmer McLane saw it, he 
opened the door, and drew the frightened child 
into the room. Then how those other children 
crowded about her, and questioned her, — those 
happy children, who had never been cold or 
hungry ! 

There was a great pity shining in Farmer 
McLane’s kindly blue eyes, as he led her up to 
the fire that had first attracted her attention, 


28 THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 

and had drawn her to the window ; and the 
fire, having accomplished its purpose, cuddled 
cosily down among its glowing embers, and 
peeped out shyly at the little frightened face 
surrounded by an interested group. 

“ Who are you, my child ? ” the good farmer 
asked, warming her blue chilled hands in his 
own large palms. 

“ I’m only Maggie, an’ ” — catching her breath 
with a quick sob — “I’m awfully cold ’n’ 
hungry.” 

“ Bless me, father, did the child say she’s 
hungry ? ” cried Mrs. # McLane, her round face 
filled with ready sympathy. “ Where are your 
father and mother, dear?” she asked in the 
next breath. 

“ Dead ; an’ I don’t want to go back to Sal. 
Say, can’t I stay here ? ” 

“Who is Sal?” Mrs. McLane then asked. 

“ She’s the woman I live with. Mar died 
owin’ her a lots o’ rent, so she keeps me to 


TWO CHRISTMAS EVES 


2 9 


beg for her ; but to-day, ’cause I didn’t get 
nothin’, she up ’n’ whipped me just awful. I’m 
uster it, but this time ’twas worse ’n usual. 
See here ! ” 

She threw back the loose sleeve of her dress, 
which hung in tatters about her, and held up 
her slender arm, revealing great livid ridges 
where the whip had left its cruel marks. 

“An’ so I runned away,” she added gravely, 
replacing the sleeve; “an’ I’d ruther die than to 
go back agin.” 

“Mother,” said Farmer McLane, looking up 
with a misty gleam in his eyes, “ isn’t there 
room in Aggie’s bed for her ? ” 

“Ay, Jamie; but we’re far from bein’ rich, 
you know, and our own must be cared for.” 

“ Such a wee mite of a thing couldn’t eat 
much,” he said, spreading the thin little hand 
out in his broad palm. 

“I’ll eat just as little as ever I can,” said 
Maggie, looking up appealingly. 


30 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


“Well, well, we can try it Jamie, at any 
rate,” said Mrs. McLane, turning her face aside, 
and wiping her eyes on her check apron. 

“ Drive up another nail, Dan. Drive up 
another nail,” shouted the children clamorously. 

“But, mother, what shall we do? Her stock- 
ings are so full of holes they will let the 
Christmas things right through,” exclaimed little 
Mary in dismay when she saw Maggie’s soiled 
and tattered hose. 

“You will have to lend her one of yours, I 
guess,” replied her mother. 

After the children had all been put to bed, and 
the little stranger, in one of Aggie’s clean white 
night-gowns, lay sleeping beside her, Mr. and 
Mrs. McLane sat in front of the yule-log, which 
had become a glowing, smouldering bed of coals, 
and talked and made plans for the future. 

“ I’m afraid that it’s an unwise thing to do,” 
she said, shaking her head dolefully. “You have 
hard work filling the mouths of your own, Jamie, 


TWO CHRISTMAS EVES 


31 


dear ; and this one will add much to our 
expenses.” 

“God won’t see us suffer because we do a 
deed of kindness to one of his homeless little 
ones,” he answered solemnly. 

They then began the task of filling five stock- 
ings with the toys and sweetmeats purchased 
for four. 

Little Maggie remained at the farmhouse for 
several months, enjoying all of its privileges in 
common with the other children ; but one day 
a wealthy, childless lady, stopping in the neigh- 
borhood, heard the child’s story, and, being 
attracted by Maggie’s pretty face and winsome 
ways, she asked permission of the McLane’s to 
adopt the little waif as her own. 

They had grown to love their “ Christmas 
child,” as they called her, very dearly, and were 
reluctant to part with her ; but they felt that it 
would not only be for her own good, but for 
theirs as well, to let her go, for their circum- 


32 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


stances were such that they could ill afford to 
keep her ; and they knew that better things than 
they could ever bestow upon her awaited her in 
the lady’s home. 

Therefore they consented, and Maggie went 
out of the old life, and into the new. She went 
with her new mamma to a distant home, far from 
the “old red farmhouse,” and heard no more of 
the McLanes for many years. 

Again it is Christmas Eve, and once more the 
wintry winds are making drifts and mounds of 
the newly fallen snow. 

The city is decked in holiday attire ; the 
streets are thronged with gay pedestrians, bear- 
ing mysterious bundles and packages, as they 
hurry with gladsome feet to their various 
homes. 

In the handsome parlor of a brown stone 
residence on one of the aristocratic avenues, a 
young merchant sits in the brilliant light of 


TWO CHRISTMAS EVES 


33 


a chandelier enjoying the society of his wife and 
child. 

“ Helen has forgotten to close the shutters,” 
he said, arising and going to the window. 

“Please, Ralph, let them remain open for this 
one evening,” his pretty wife entreated. 

He turned toward her with a surprised inquiry 
in his eyes. 

“ I do not understand why you should desire 
them left open on this especial evening,” he said. 
“ For my part, I prefer to have my home to my- 
self, and do not care to have the rude gaze of the 
world taking inventory of our parlor’s belongings.” 

She came to his side, and, laying one white 
hand on his arm, lifted her fair face, with the 
tenderness of a memory upon it, to his, as she 
told him the story of a Christmas eve when 
she, a homeless, wretched little child, had found 
a home and kind friends because one good man 
had given to the outside world the benefit of 
his Christmas light. 


34 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


“It is enough, dear,” he answered gently: 
“ we will let our light shine out for to-night.” 

When they had resumed their seats, Mr. 
Denton called his little daughter to his side, 
and asked what she would like for a Christmas 
present. 

“ I’d like a grandpapa best of all,” she said 
innocently. “ Mamie West has two grandpapas 
and a grandmamma ; and one of her grand- 
papas is just beautiful, he is so good. I like 
them all, but I like him best. I don’t see why 
God sent her so many, and not a single one 
to me.” 

“Ah, me!” said Mr. Denton, almost sadly: 
“ there are things, my little daughter, that 
money will not purchase.” 

“ But God will send me a grandpapa for a 
Christmas present if I ask him to, for God can 
do any thing,” said the little one earnestly 
and decidedly. “ I’ve got dollies and cradles and 
stoves and dishes, and every thing but just 


TWO CHRISTMAS EVES 


35 


grandpapas and grandmammas. I ^should think 
that God might spare one for me, when he 
gives other little girls three and four apiece.” 

“But yours are dead, my little Amy,” said 
her mother, gently caressing her sunny hair. 

“ Then God can make a new one for me,” 
persisted the child confidently. 

“ Oh for the perfect faith of childhood ! ” 
remarked Mr. Denton, his eyes following the 
graceful form of his little daughter as she went 
over to the window, and stood looking down 
into the street below, quite unconscious of the 
pretty picture she made, or the number of people 
who paused to admire her. 

Suddenly she came flying back to her mother s 
side with a wondering light deepening in her 
wide blue eyes. 

“Mamma,” she whispered in an awed voice, 
“does Santa Claus ever leave the presents on 
the doorstep ? ” 

“ Sometimes, dear,” replied her mother, smiling 


36 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


into the eager, excited little face; “but why do 
you ask ? ” 

“Because he’s left a grandpa there for me. 
Oh, papa, do come quick, and bring him in ! ” 

She tugged at her father’s hand in her impa- 
tience. 

Mr. Denton, to satisfy the child, went into 
the hall, and threw open the massive front 
door. 

As he did so, he discovered a feeble old man 
leaning against the house for support. 

“Forgive me,” the tremulous old voice began 
apologetically, “but it looked so bright and 
warm in there, and it seemed to warm my old 
blood just to see it. I’ll go away now.” 

“ Why, you’re my grandpapa that God sent ; 
and you’re not going away,” called out little 
Amy, who had followed her father to the door. 

“ Maggie, Maggie,” cried the old man, leaning 
forward, and peering into the child’s rosy 
uplifted face. 



In Grandpapa’s Lap. Page 37 




TWO CHRISTMAS EVES 


3 ; 


At the sound of his voice, Mrs. Denton came 
hastily forward, exclaiming, — 

“Mr. McLane, is it possible that this is you?” 

Need I tell you that she discovered it was 
he ; and then that he was taken out of the 
cold into the handsome parlor, and placed before 
the glowing grate in the very finest, softest 
chair the room contained ; and that she, in her 
beautiful rich dress of sheeny silk, knelt on the 
floor beside him, and wound her white arms 
about his neck, and kissed his troubled old face 
as a daughter might have done, while the tears 
of love and sympathy filled her eyes to overflow. 

No, I need not tell you, for you have guessed 
it all ; even to the part little Amy took in the 
programme, climbing up on his knee, and taking 
possession of “grandpapa’s lap,” as she had seen 
other little girls with “grandpapas of their very 
own ” do. 

When they had rested and comforted and warmed 
and refreshed him, he told his pitiful story. 


38 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


The loving warm-hearted wife and little Agnes 
were “gone to the better home.” Dan, many 
years past, had gone to sea, and had never 
returned. Mary had married a drunkard, and 
had died of a broken heart. Willie, the young- 
est, had married an heiress, whose haughty 
pride barred the doors of her elegant home 
against her husband’s father, and had weaned 
away the son’s affection. Old, feeble, and home- 
less, he was seeking alms in the street, when 
the cheerful light from the rich man’s parlor 
windows lured him to the steps for a closer 
view of the warmth and comfort within. 

“ I knew that God would send you, grand- 
papa,” confided Amy with her pretty face close 
pressed to his, “’cause I asked him to send 
you ; and God, you know, can do any thing.” 

Thus the aged wanderer found a home, little 
Amy a grandpapa ; and the blessing of a kind 
act will follow the old man to his grave. 


CHRIST’S BIRTHDAY 


“Now, grandma, if you should have a birth- 
day, and all of us grandchildren should give 
presents to each other, and never once think 
of you, or care whether you was having a nice 
time or not, you’d think that we were a lot of 
selfish, naughty children, wouldn’t you ? ” 

“ I should be likely to think that you did 
not love me very much, Charlie, dear,” said 
grandma, gazing fondly into the wide, earnest 
eyes of her little grandson. 

“That’s just what I think,” said he, emphati- 
cally nodding his curly head. 

The other children left their books and toys 
to gather about grandma’s chair : one crept 
closer than the others, and began to smooth 
the snowy hair under the border of her cap ; 


39 


40 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


one leaned a bright little head on the dear 
shoulder that had pillowed so many bright 
heads in the years that were gone ; one shy 
little girl stood at a respectful distance, and 
admired the gentle, placid face with silent 
adoration ; while wee Bess, grandma’s own name- 
sake, and the youngest of the group, climbed 
into her lap, and nestled her rosy, dimpled cheek 
close to the aged one, that had once been round 
and fair and rosy. 

“That’s just exactly what I think, grandma,” 
Charlie repeated ; “ and it seems as though we 
don’t care very much for Jesus, when we just 
use his birthday to make ourselves happy. Of 
course, we buy presents for others ; but they’re 
always for some one who will give us something 
nice in return. We calculate to get as many 
presents as we give away, and maybe a few 
more. Now, I’ve got two dollars and twenty- 
five cents that I earned splitting kindling-wood 
for mamma, and piling it in the shed.” 


CHRIST 'S BIRTH DA V 


41 


“An’ you’d just better believe ’at I’ve got a 
whole dollar ’n fifty cents for bringing it in,” 
chimed in a wee boy, lifting himself on his 
excited little toes, in order to peep over a 
larger cousin’s shoulder. “ ’Cause I ain’t so big 
as Charlie, and I couldn’t do so much work,” 
he explained. “ But I’ve earned my Christmas 
money my very own self, and mamma said that 
we was to spend our Christmas money ezactly 
as we pleased, ’thout being told.” 

“ Mamma gave me ten cents a week for 
washing the breakfast dishes since school 
began,” said a shy little girl with a modest 
blush. “ Of course I’d wash the dishes for my 
darling mamma, anyhow,” she hastened to remark, 
lest her audience might consider her a mercenary 
little girl who did not love her mamma ; “ but 
she said I wasn’t strong enough to earn my 
Christmas money in any other way, and she 
said that she ’proved of children’s earning their 
own ‘gift’ money. So I’ve got a dollar and 
twenty cents.” 


42 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


“ I’s dot two bid, round moneys untie Ned 
dived me for tisses ; an’ I’s doin’ to dit gwan’ma’ 
two bushels of tandy, an’ help her eat it,” said 
little Bess complaisantly, lifting her head from 
its resting-place on grandma’s breast, and looking 
about on those occupying less favored positions. 

“ I earned my money a-picking blackberries,” 
informed Willie, thrusting both hands deep into 
his pockets, and assuming a “ don’t care ” expres- 
sion, as though such small affairs were quite 
beneath his notice. “ It was such a long while 
ago, that I wouldn’t be one bit s’prised if there 
isn’t much left. My bank lifts awfully light 
lately, anyhow.” 

“ Well, Charlie dear,” said grandma, succeed- 
ing at last in making herself heard, “ how would 
you propose to improve upon the old way of 
remembering Christ’s birthday ? ” 

“ I don’t know.” A little pucker of perplexity 
came on his white brow under the auburn curls. 
“ If there was only some way of giving our 


CHRIST'S BIRTHDAY 


43 


presents to him. Wouldn’t it be nice and 
grand to buy a present for Jesus ? ” 

“ Oh, if we only could ! ” exclaimed the shy 
little girl with a “ far away ” look in her 
eyes. 

“ I raver dit somefin’ for gwan’ma,” said Bess 
emphatically, “ ’cause she’d vide wiv me.” 

“ Well, children, why don’t you make a 
present to the Saviour with your money this 
year?” asked grandma, softly stroking . Bessie’s 
golden curls. “ I am sure that you could please 
him very much, if you tried.” 

“ Could we? O grandma, how would we 
be able to get it up to him, and what should 
we get ? ” cried Charlie enthusiastically. 

“ I s’pose he’s got every thing he wants up in 
heaven,” said the small voice in the rear. 

“ Dear grandma, do please tell us how,” said 
Charlie, who was thoroughly in earnest. 

“ Don’t you remember, Charlie, that our 
Saviour once said, ‘ Inasmuch as ye have done 


44 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it 
unto me ’ ? ” 

“ Whom did he mean, grandma ? ” asked Elsie, 
in a hushed voice. 

“ He meant the poor, my dear ; those who 
are suffering for want of the blessings that we 
enjoy. His own poor are very dear to him, and 
he will not forget a kindness* done to them.” 

“ Grandma,” began the small boy, crowding 
himself forward where he could be seen as well 
as heard, “ is Maggie West’s mamma God’s 
poor ? ” 

“ I think she is, my dear. I have only met 
her a few times, when she has brought your 
mamma’s washing home ; but she seems like a 
very worthy woman. Why do you ask ? ” 

“’Cause Maggie told me the other day that 
there wasn’t to be any Christmas at their house 
this year ; and there’s four little children too. 
Only just think of it, grandma, — four children, 
an’ no Christmas ! ” 


CHRIST'S BIRTHDAY 


45 


“No Christmas at all, Joey, not even a stick 
of candy to divide among them ? ” questioned 
Elsie, in amazement that such a condition could 
possibly exist. “ Oh, that must be dreadful ! ” 
“I guess it is,” said Joey solemnly; “an’ I 
know she told me the truth, for she hadn’t had 
any breakfast yet, an’ it was most noon. She said 
that she was waitin’ till Bennie sold his mornin’ 
papers, so that he’d have some money to buy 
her some breakfast with. She ’pologized, an’ 
said that she most always had breakfast. Why, 
I never went ’thout my breakfast in my life. 
I gave her my cooky I was eatin’, an’ you 
ought’er have seen her eat it.” 

“ Didn’t the odder chil’uns have any breksus 
ewer ? ” asked Bess, in wide-eyed wonder. 

“Of course not; they wouldn’t let just one 
of ’em go without,” replied Joe contemptuously. 

“Then, grandma, we’ll div’ ’em a ’ittle tandy. 
S’much might mate us sick, you know.” This 
was spoken with the utmost gravity, and caused 


4 6 


THE YEAR'S REST DAYS 


the other children to laugh at Bessie’s quaint 
method of feeding hungry children. 

It was a whole week before Christmas when 
this important conversation took place in the 
back parlor at Mr. Leonard’s residence on 
Fourth Street. Grandma and two little cousins 
from the West were spending the holidays with 
the Leonards ; and although the children had 
been informed that they were to spend their 
Christmas money exactly as they chose, still, on 
account of the unusual manner in which they 
decided to spend it, grandma consented to drop 
a few timely hints, and to make a few wise 
suggestions, while Mr. and Mrs. Leonard entered 
heartily into the plan, and contributed generously 
to the children’s work of love. 

Mrs. West, whose humble apartments were in 
an old tenement just back of the Leonards’ 
fine home, could not understand why she, and 
the wee girl who begged the privilege of helping 
carry the washing home, were objects of such 


CHRIST 'S BIRTH DA Y 


47 


unusual interest to the “ little folk ” at the 
Leonard residence, when she went for their 
washing the week preceding Christmas. 

Every one of the children, not excepting the 
two little Western cousins, managed to pass 
through the room, while she sat waiting for the 
girl to bring the clothes. 

The children had unanimously voted to spend 
their Christmas money for the benefit of the 
“little Wests.” Only baby Bess hesitated, with 
a pout on her red lips, still adhering to her 
determination of spending her “ two wound 
moneys” for candy as a present to grandma; 
the greater part of which, she felt convinced, 
would eventually find its way into her own small 
mouth. But she was quite as curious as any of 
them to see the “ littlest West,” who began to 
show signs of fright at the attention bestowed 
upon her, and tried to hide in the folds of her 
mother’s dress. 

Advancing to her side, Bessie placed a dough- 


48 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


nut in her hand, and in an audible whisper 
asked, — 

“Hasn’t you dot any potits in your dwess?” 

When the little one informed her that she 
hadn’t a single pocket, Bessie’s sympathetic little 
heart was quite won over ; and with a doleful 
sigh she announced her intention of “ buyin’ 
the ’ittle dirl a dwess wiv a potit in it, an’ 
puttin’ tandy in ’e potit.” 

Aunt Sue, a pretty young lady whom all the 
children loved, was appointed general superin- 
tendent of the shopping expedition. She was 
also to decide the best method of conveying 
the articles to Mrs. West’s room without her 
children’s knowledge. This was a difficult 
undertaking, as they wished to surprise the 
mother as well as the children. 

It lacked but a day of Christmas, and all the 
presents for the “little Wests” had been pur- 
chased, and were spread out on tables and 
chairs in mamma’s room, where the children 


CHRIST 'S BIRTHDA V 


49 


spent the greater part of their time, admiring 
the various articles of wearing-apparel, and the 
numerous toys which were purchased with their 
own money ; discussing the respective merit of 
each, and predicting just how they would be 
received by the children, who were not expecting 
a “ Christmas ” this year. 

But the manner of presentation was the 
question that found no satisfactory solution. 
Suggestions were made and discarded in a 
breath. A general expression of perplexity was 
noticeable on all the faces of those gathered in 
mamma’s room, to decide the important matter. 

Even little Bess puckered her smooth fore- 
head into a scowl, “tryin’ to fink,” as she 
explained to Elsie. 

Suddenly, in the very midst of their uncertainty, 
Charlie flung the door open and noisily entered 
the room. 

“I know just how we’ll manage it,” he began 
impetuously. “We’ll take the tree and all the 


50 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


things over while they are gone to church. 
I’ve been having a good talk with Bennie West.” 

“You didn’t let out a single hint ? ” interrupted 
Joey anxiously. 

“ Of course not ; trust me to keep a secret. 
Well, Bennie said that his mamma is going to 
take them all to church in the morning to see 
the pretty church flowers, ’cause they can’t have 
any other Christmas ; and Trot (that’s the little 
one) can’t go without her mother. And he said 
that the key of their door broke last night, so 
that they can’t lock it, and he was awfully 
afraid that some of them would have to stay at 
home, ’cause the rent comes due the day after 
to-morrow, and his mamma can’t buy another 
key until next week ; but his mamma said the 
door could be left unlocked as well as not, for 
there wasn’t a single thing in their house that 
any one would want, they’re so poor, you know. 
Now, why can’t aunt Sue and papa and I take 
over the tree and the presents, and fix them in 


CHRIST'S BIRTHDAY 


51 


the room, while they are at church ? We can 
get all through and go away by the time they 
get home.” 

“It will be just the thing,” said aunt Sue, in 
tones of relief ; while the look of perplexity 
faded from all their faces, and little Bess 
volunteered to accompany them, and carry the 
candy, every kind of which she thoroughly 
tested, to make sure that the “ little Wests” 
were getting the genuine article. 

Three pair of bright eyes watched from Mr. 
Leonard’s back window, to see when Mrs. West 
and her children had departed for church. 

The moment they were fairly out of sight the 
signal was given ; and Mr. Leonard, aunt Sue, 
and Charlie, laden with bundles and packages of 
various sizes and shapes, started directly for 
Mrs. West’s home. Polly, the kitchen-maid, 
brought up in the rear with other parcels, and 
all disappeared within the open door of the 
tenement-house. 


52 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


Mrs. Leonard had promised the children that 
they might “ skip across the alley ” and view 
the tree when it was arranged, just as it would 
meet the astonished gaze of the “ little Wests ” 
on their return home. 

After a time that seemed like hours to the 
waiting children at home, Charlie came running 
out, and beckoned frantically for them to come. 

Then how they did scamper across their own 
back-yard, and the alley at the rear, in their 
happy haste to see the Christmas-tree ! 

“Grandma,” said little Joe, when they were 
all back in their own home once more, “I never 
was so happy in all my life. I feel all swelled 
up inside of me ; sort of — of tickled all through 
me. It’s lots better ’n gettin’ presents myself.” 

“Maybe that tandy ’ll mate ’em all sick,” 
remarked Bess with grave seriousness ; “ but I’s 
awfully glad they’s dot it, poor ’ittle sings.” 

When the evening came, and the front parlor, 
which had been mysteriously closed for days, was 


CHRIST 'S BIRTH DA Y 


53 


thrown open, the children found that they had 
been abundantly remembered ; though through 
all the pleasure of their own Christmas enjoy- 
ments ran the, happy thought, that those little 
children at Mrs. West’s were also having a 
merry Christmas. 

The next day Charlie came in from the cold 
out-doors, and gathered his audience about him, 
while he related the sequel to their previous 
excitement. 

“ I met Bennie West this morning,” he said ; 
“ and he had on his new boots and mittens. I 
asked him if Santa Claus brought them ; and he 
said, ‘ I guess he did, and a lot of other things 
beside ; you’d just ought to see the things he 
brought us. We came home from church never 
expecting a single thing ; though Maggie ’d been 
praying for weeks for some Christmas presents, 
like other folks get. But I didn’t believe 
they’d come, ’cause God’s too busy to listen to 
such a lots of prayers ; but he did hear, and 


54 


THE YEA R 'S BEST DAYS 


you ought to have seen the way he answered 
Maggie’s prayer too.’ Them’s his very words. 
I remembered, so that I could tell you all about 
what he said,” continued Charlie; “and then he 
said, ‘You just ought to have seen mother, 
Charlie Leonard : she looked as if she was 
saying thank you to the Lord, and I truly 
•believe she was. By and by mother began to 
take the things off from the tree ; and true as 
you live, there was every thing you could ever 
think of to make us happy.’ 

“ And, mother,” added Charlie, while his 
cheeks and eyes glowed excitedly, “ he came 
up close to me, and looked all around, as though 
he was afraid that some one would hear him, 
and said awfully solemn-like, ‘ Charlie, I shall 
alway believe that God hears us when we pray 
after this, ’cause he surely did hear Maggie, 
and sent all them things just because she 
asked him for them. And we had a dinner 
yesterday too, a really, truly cooked dinner, like 


CHRIST 'S BIRTH DA Y 


55 


other folks ; turkey and mince-pie, and — oh, it 
seems just like a dream ; only it ain’t a dream, 
’cause here’s my boots and mittens.’ 

“I didn’t tell it wasn’t God at all, but just 
us that did it,” continued Charlie soberly. “It 
seemed such a pity to tell him, when he was so 
sure it was God.” 

“God put it into our hearts, Charlie dear,” 
answered mamma softly. “ It is the way he 
answers prayers.” 


THE CHRISTMAS DOLL 


I’ll tell you all about it, Tom, 

Because you wasn’t here. 

You remember little Minnie Clare, 
Whose papa died last year? 

She lives with her aunt Jane, you know 
But in her auntie’s home, 

The happy Christmas mornings, 

With their presents, never come. 

She never had a dolly, Tom, 

In all her life before, — 

Not e’en a little, teenty one ; 

And I’ve got twenty-four. 

And so when Christmas morning came, 
And all our pretty toys 
Were scattered ’round about the room, 
I whispered to the boys, 

5 <> 


THE CHRISTMAS DOLL 


57 


“ How sorry little Min must be 
When Christmas morning comes ! 

She never gets a single thing, 

Not even sugar-plums.” 

And Frecl looked just as sober then, 

And Dick looked sober, too. 

“ It’s such a shame,” said Dick at last, 

“ I’ll tell you what we’ll do. 

There’s books and toys a plenty here, 

And sugar-plums, and such; 

Suppose we give her something, 

We wouldn’t miss it much.” 

“ All right,” said Fred. “ Here’s Noah’s ark, 
I’ll give her this, you see.” 

Then Dick laid out a picture-book, 

And then they looked at me. 

I took my newest dolly up, 

The sweetest of them all. 

It seemed as though my heart would break ; 
The tears began to fall 


58 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


Upon her lovely yellow hair. 

O Tom ! you cannot know 
How hard it was for me to let 
My precious dolly go. 

But when they sent for little Min, 

And papa gave the book, 

And Noah’s ark, she took them 
With a bright and happy look. 

But oh, you should have seen her eyes, 
When papa turned about, 

And, taking off its little wrap, 

Handed the dolly out ! 

She laid its cheek against her own ; 

She kissed it ; then she cried. 

And I was just as happy, for 
I’d twenty-four beside. 


WHAT SANTA CLAUS BROUGHT 


They sat in a row at grandma’s, 

Three little dimpled girls ; 

Rosy and sweet from head to feet, 
Bundles of bliss, just right to kiss, 
Tangles of yellow curls ; 

The dearest, darlingest, dimpled band 
That ever stepped out of baby land. 

“ O my ! ” said Dottie Dimple, 

Her wee hands clasped in glee, 

“Such lots an’ lots of goodies 
My Santa Claus bringed me. 

My stockings new, all red an’ blue, 

Were podded out, an’ just about 
Stretched big enough for grandma’s feet; 
From top to toe brim full of sweet.” 


59 


6o 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


“Well, Santa Claus was better 
To 7iie than any thing,” 

Said little May, in rapture ; 

“ I never fout he’d bring 
A doll that cries, and shuts its eyes. 
Now, Bettie Bet, what did you get? 
Your Santa Claus is poor, I know, 
’Cause papa told my mamma so.” 

“ My Santa Claus,” cried Bettie, 

“ Is richer’n any other ; 

He brought the richest present 
To me an’ to my mother. 

It was — oh, you can’t guess it ! — 

A darling little brother. 

He kicks, an’ cries, an’ shuts his eyes, 
An’ he is sweet enough to eat. 

I’d rather have my baby brother 
Than dolls or candy; so had mother.” 


VALENTINE’S T>AY 


‘ Brown head and yellow head , 
Gray eyes and blue, 

Little lad and lassie, here are 
Valentines for you. 


















































A LITTLE GIRL’S VALENTINE 


Two children stood in front of a gorgeously 
decorated window, admiring the valentines dis- 
played within, one bright February day. They 
were as unlike in clothing and general appearance 
as it is possible for two children to be. 

One, a little newsboy, with a great bundle of 
papers under his arm, unable to resist the temp- 
tation, had snatched a few moments from the 
busiest part of the day to admire and covet the 
beauties so alluringly displayed before his longing 
eyes. He had rosy cheeks, and bright brown 
curls that clung to the edge of his tattered hat. 
There was no pinched, half-famished look about 
him ; for although he was a newsboy, and earned 
pennies by selling papers in the streets of Chi- 
cago, he was a sturdy, healthy little fellow, and 

63 


6 4 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


conducted his business affairs with shrewdness 
and tact that spoke well for his success as one of 
the city’s prosperous business men of the future. 

His clothes were neatly patched, and his face 
and hands were as clean as one could expect a 
boy’s face and hands to be, after spending two or 
three hours in the streets of smoky Chicago. 
Had any one taken the trouble to have given the 
boy one good look, they would have come to the 
decision, that somewhere in the great city a warm 
heart beat lovingly for him, and kindly hands had 
done their best to make him comfortable and 
respectable in appearance. 

The other child was a little rose-bud of a girl ; 
a dainty little darling, in the softest of silks and 
the whitest of laces, with drooping plumes on her 
pretty plush hat, and tasselled boots on her small 
feet. 

In her pretty childish way she had persuaded 
her papa that it was the best and most proper 
thing in the world for her to remain without, and 


A LITTLE GIRL'S VALENTINE 65 


admire the window’s ornamentations, while he 
went inside and purchased valentines. 

This is how it happened that little Pearl Vin- 
cent and Frank Linton the newsboy came to be 
standing side by side that February afternoon. 

“Oh, my! aren’t they just lovely!” she ex- 
claimed rapturously, clasping her wee hands 
together; and her blue eyes shone, and the wind 
caught her yellow, flossy hair and tossed it di- 
rectly in Frank’s face, then swept it away again, 
leaving his eyes clear to admire her. He had 
removed his gaze from the pretty painted faces 
on the valentines, to watch the beautiful real 
face beside him. 

He had never felt so awkward or confused in 
all his life before, and yet he quite forgot his 
unsold papers in his enjoyment of this new sen- 
sation. 

“ My papa shall buy that prettiest one, with 
the roses and the Cupids, and every thing beau- 
tiful ; the one that you pull a little silk cord at 


66 


THE YEA R 'S BEST DA VS 


the bottom, and a little girl jumps out, and 
throws kisses at you. He shall buy it for me, 
and I will send it to some one that I love,” she 
said with confident Assurance. 

“Your papa must be very rich,” ventured 
Frank, dropping his eyes from the lovely ani- 
mated face to the costly clothing that consti- 
tuted her attire. “I’d like to get one for my 
little lame sister Fay, but I’ll have to sell all of 
these papers if I take her any thing to-night. 
Dear me, I ought to be selling papers this 
minute.” 

But, although the necessity was so urgent, he 
still lingered, neglectful of duty. 

“ How did she come to be lame ? ” questioned 
Pearl, losing all interest in the valentines, and 
devoting her entire attention to her companion. 

“ She fell down the long stairs and hurt her 
back awfully,” he replied. “ Mother says that 
she can be cured when we have saved enough 
money ; but it costs such a lot to have your 


A LITTLE GIRL'S VALENTINE 67 

back straightened when it’s grown crooked, doc- 
tors do charge so awfully, and that’s why we’re 
obliged to save and ’conomize so much. We 
don’t often dare afford to buy nice things, just 
sometimes an orange or a tiny piece of chicken 
for Fay. She can’t eat dry bread like I do.” 

“Just dry bread without any butter on it?” 
asked Pearl, her blue eyes big with amaze- 
ment. 

“Just dry bread,” repeated Frank; “but I 
don’t mind : it tastes good to me when I’m hun- 
gry, and I’m most always hungry.” 

“Don’t you have soup, and nice roasts and 
potatoes ? ” 

“No soup. Once in a while a piece of meat, 
and sometimes potatoes.” 

“ Nor any nice dessert, either ? ” Pearl’s face 
was lengthening out as she made discoveries of 
things she had not known existed in life. 

“ I don’t know what a dessert is,” he made 


answer. 


68 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


“ Why, pie and cake and pudding and fruit,” 
she said. 

“ Whew ! wouldn’t I like a whole dessert just 
for once ; but I never have even a piece of one,” 
he exclaimed. 

“ I’m so, so sorry for you and the little lame 
girl.” Pearl put both dimpled hands on his 
arm, and looked up into his face with tearful 
eyes. She had never known a grief in her short, 
bright life, and these things Frank had spoken of 
seemed terrible. “ Where do you live, little 
boy ? ” 

“ It’s in a tenement-house. You wouldn’t 
know if I should tell you,” with a side-long glance 
at the pretty dress. “ Now, where do you live ? 
I know most every street in the city. My 
business,” tapping his papers significantly, 
“ takes me around quite a considerable.” 

“ My home is No. — Michigan Avenue,” said 
Pearle, as if reciting a lesson. “ My mamma 
spent a whole afternoon teaching it to me ; 


A LITTLE GIRL'S VALEJVTIJVE 69 


’cause, you know, I might some time get away 
and be lost.” 

“ Papa,” she called, as a tall, fine-looking 
gentleman came out of the store with a neat 
little package in his hand, “ I want a valentine to 
send away this very minute, and I want just the 
prettiest and most spensive one you can find. I 
may have it, may I not, papa, dear ? ” 

“ Certainly, my pet. Come in and select one,” 
he said fondly. 

“You come too,” nodding her bright head in 
Frank’s direction. “ I want you to help find a 
real pretty one. It is for the little lame girl.” 

Frank blushed and hesitated ; but when the 
gentleman kindly seconded his wee daughter’s 
invitation, he followed gladly. 

When Frank received a beautiful valentine 
from the hands of the little girl, he felt as though 
he were suffocating with happiness. A great 
lump came up in his throat, and stopped the 
words he would have spoken, so he was com- 


70 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


pelled to look his thanks ; but the glance was 
sufficiently eloquent, and Pearl knew all he 
wanted to say. 

Unbuttoning his coat, he laid the precious val- 
entine inside, where it would be kept smooth and 
safe until he could take it home to Fay. 

Then remembering his unsold papers, and that 
business hours were passing, he hurried down the 
street, shouting in his clear, ringing treble, — 

“ ‘ Times ! ’ * Tribune ! ’ Paper, sir ? ” 

But there was such a confusion of thoughts in 
his busy brain — blue eyes, laughing dimples, 
yellow hair, — and he made so many stops to see 
if his treasure was safe, that once, instead of 
calling the names of his papers, he actually 
called out “ Valentines ! ” 

Altogether his afternoon’s success, from a busi- 
ness point of view, was a total failure ; but there was 
the elegant valentine to carry home to little lame 
Fay, and this was more real pleasure than he had 
ever been permitted to take home to her before. 



Fay’s Valentine. Page 71 . 








































A LITTLE GIRL'S VALENTINE 


7 1 


“ I couldn’t wait until to-morrow,” he ex- 
plained, on entering the room where Fay lay on 
the bed, with a few old toys about her, “ because 
lots of things might happen between this and 
to-morrow. She was such a lovely little girl, 
and she sent it to you, Fay. Oh, it is so beauti- 
ful, and it is your very own ! ” 

Over the frail child’s face swept a glad expect- 
ancy, like a halo of glory ; and the weary mother 
dropped her sewing to watch Frank’s movements 
with pleased eyes. 

“ There ! ” he held the pretty valentine before 
Fay’s delighted eyes. 

“ O Frank! O mamma!” was all she could 
say, as she reached her thin, transparent hands 
for it. 

“ If I only had one to send to her, — if I only 
had,” she said for the twentieth time, after Frank 
had patiently repeated a most minute discription 
of the little girl. 

“Mamma,” Frank said suddenly, with his eyes 


72 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


on Fay’s flushed, happy face, “ Fay looks a 
little like her, a very little.” 

Mamma smiled at her boy’s enthusiasm, and 
cut another button-hole. 

“Frank, I feel as if I ought to write to the 
dear little girl, and thank her for this,” said 
Fay, when mamma was in the next room 
preparing their supper. “ If I should, do you 
think you could find the place, to take the letter 
to her ? ” 

“To be sure I could. I know every foot of 
Michigan Avenue like a book,” Frank replied. 
“Of course you ought to thank her. It — it’s 
the proper thing to do.” 

He had a great desire to see the pretty, bright 
face again ; and it seemed most ungracious for 
Fay not to thank her for such a lovely valentine. 

“I’ll write to her at once,” said Fay. “Get 
me my pencil, Frank, and some paper.” 

“ Here’s the pencil, but there isn’t any paper,” 
returned Frank. 


A LITTLE GIRL'S VALENTINE 


7 3 


“ Isn’t there a single bit anywhere ? ” asked 
Fay, in disappointed tones. 

“ Only this that came around the tea ; but 
this is almost white.” 

“That will do. Now get a book to lay it on 
while I write.” 

Sitting up in bed, with a pillow and a blanket 
at her back, Fay began slowly and laboriously 
to spell out the words, and write them down, 
assisted by Frank. Mrs. Linton had taught her 
children at home, and they were not deficient in 
writing. 

This is what Fay wrote : — 

Dear Little Girl, — We are so, so happy, Frank 
and I, because of the beautiful valentine you sent me ; 
and I shall love you always, as hard as I can ; and I’ll 
ask God to make you always as happy as you have made 
me. 

FAY LINTON. 

Mr. Vincent’s family were just leaving the 
dining-room, when the basement bell rang. 


7 4 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


“I’ll open the door, and save Nancy a few 
steps,” said a blithe young voice, and Pearl 
swung the great door open. 

“ O papa, mamma, it’s the nice little news- 
boy, and he’s got a letter for me ! — Come 
right in while I read my letter,” she added 
hospitably. 

Frank took a seat in the great lower hall, while 
Pearl ran for her papa, to assist her in reading 
her letter. 

“ Fay Linton,” he said, looking across at his 
wife. “ That was your name when you were a 
girl, dear ? ” 

“ Bring the boy in, Herbert,” said his wife 
quickly. “ I have not heard from my brother 
Frank for years, and it may be that these children 
are his.” 

Frank was called into the dining-room and 
questioned in regard to his father, though Mrs. 
Vincent was convinced of his identity the 


A LITTLE GIRL'S VALENTINE 


7 5 


moment she looked in the frank, open face, so 
like her brother’s had been in the long ago. 

“ I shall love you very much, my dear, because 
you are my dead brother’s son,” she said, as she 
pressed a warm kiss on his cheek. 

“ It seems like going back over all these years, 
and finding my little brother again,” she said, 
caressing his brown curls with one jewelled hand. 
“Where are you going, Herbert ? ” 

“ I am going with the boy, to bring his mother 
and little sister home,” he said ; and he proceeded 
to put on his great warm overcoat. “ The car- 
riage will be at the door in a moment.” 

“To be sure you are,” she said quickly. “I 
had forgotten that there were others beside this 
dear boy.” 

“ And the dear little sick girl, who is lame,” 
cried Pearl, dancing about in glee. “You’ll 
bring her here for my sister ; and you’ll cure 
her, won’t you, papa ? ” 


;6 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


“If medical skill can avail, she shall be cured,” 
he replied. 

And Pearl, standing on tip-toe, put her rosy 
lips close to P'rank’s ear, and breathed a soft, 
warm breath into it as she whispered, — 

“You shall have dessert this very night.” 


AUNTIE MAY’S VALENTINE 


My mamma went to live with Jesus so long 
ago, and I’ve been auntie May’s little girl ever 
since. Auntie is just as lovely as she can be, 
with big blue eyes that look so sorry some- 
times, as if she wanted to cry and the tears 
wouldn’t come. I think it’s dreadful to have an 
ache in your throat, when you can’t cry and let 
it out. Auntie lets me cry when I want to, and 
sometimes I scream like every thing ; then I 
feel so much better afterwards. 

My papa’s gone to heaven, and my mamma, 
and everybody I ever loved very much, ’cept 
just my auntie May ; and I know such a pretty 
story about her, and she says that I helped to 
make it end so beau-ti-fully, that I am going 
to think it all over, here by myself, in my own 


77 


78 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


pretty white bed, with the gas making such a 
tiny light in the room. 

This is Mr. Archer’s house, and it’s a great, 
big house, and we don’t have to ’conomize one 
bit any more ; and auntie wears silk dresses 
every day, and her eyes have lost that sorry 
look they used to have, and my valentine did 
it all. 

We used to be so poor, auntie and I. We 
lived up ever so many stairs, in a little room 
at the very top ; and when I would cry because 
the stairs were so long and dark, auntie would 
tell me that we were away up above the noise 
and dust of the street, and it was worth all the 
trouble to get even a very little nearer to God. 
I guess she said it to make me feel better ; but 
then, she always finds the bright side to every 
thing. 

Well, Valentine’s Day came at last, and I 
hadn’t a cent, — not a single cent, — and the 
windows were so perfectly beautiful at the 


AUNTIE MAT'S VALENTINE 


79 


shops, with Cupids and angels and birds and 
flowers, and every thing lovely ; and I did want 
to get one for my auntie. But the prettiest 
ones were as much as five cents, and the big 
ones were ever so much more. 

It was a nice, warm day, and I’d been out 
looking in the windows, ’cause auntie said that 
fresh air would do me good. 

There was a little hole in the window-glass, 
that I guess the shop-man didn’t know about. 
It was just big enough for my hand to slip 
through, and I do really believe I would have 
got the valentine that lay right inside if some- 
body hadn’t been watching. It was all blue 
and gold, with two hands and two hearts, and 
ever so many little baby-angels, and I did want 
it so much for auntie ; but some one was watch- 
ing, you know. 

It wasn’t the p’liceman, ’cause he was down 
the street tending to a drunkard man. It 
wasn’t the shop-man, ’cause he was busy inside 


8o 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


doing up valentines for folks. It wasn’t the 
people passing by, ’cause they were all a-peek- 
ing at their own valentines, and didn’t care one 
cent what a poor little girl like me was doing. 
But it was God. Auntie told me all about him, 
and I was afraid that he’d punish me dreadfully, 
and so I didn’t dare. 

When I went home I thought I’d ask auntie 
for a few pennies. Sometimes, when we’ve done 
lots of sewing, and feel real rich, she gives me 
some. 

I put my arms around her neck, and kissed 
her first ; that’s the way I always do when I want 
things ever so bad. 

“What is it, dear ? ” she asked, leaning over her 
work a little more, so that I couldn’t see her 
face ; and I thought her voice sounded queer, as 
if she had a cold. 

“I want a penny, auntie, so bad, oh, so very 
bad!” I said, giving her a squeeze with my two 
arms. “The valentines are beautifuller than any 





1 want a penny, auntie, so bad, oh, so very bad.” Page 80. 



- 






































































AUNTIE MAY'S VALENTINE 


8 1 


thing ; only the beautifullest are as much as five 
cents.” 

“You want a valentine?” said auntie, catch- 
ing her breath quick, like I do when the cry is 
in my throat, and I can’t keep it back another 
minute. “ My poor little girl, there isn’t an- 
other penny left ; and I’m afraid that, for the first 
time, you will have to go to bed hungry to- 
night.” 

It was lonesome in the room after that, with 
auntie looking so sad over by the window. Be- 
sides, I was getting awfully hungry, and there 
wasn’t to be any supper ; so I thought I’d run 
out and look at the valentines once more, and 
maybe I could get a smell of the bakery when 
the door was opened. 

I was standing half-way between the window 
and the bakery door. 

They were such a teenty way apart that 
whenever anybody opened the door I could run 
up close enough to get a good smell ; and, oh 


82 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


my, wasn’t the smells just splendid ! Folks 
were eating in the back part of the room, and 
there was turkey, and oyster soup ; and some- 
times I got the biggest kind of smells. Between 
times I looked at the valentines. 

While I was standing there a man went past, 
a big, handsome man, with black whiskers and 
brown eyes. 

“ Don’t I wish I had it,” said I ; and I didn’t 
know I was talking out loud, until he came up 
to me and asked, — 

“What is it you want so very much, my 
little girl ? ” 

“That prettiest valentine, with the two heads 
and the two hearts and the lots of little 
angels.” 

“Ah, I see; you want it for some little boy 
friend,” said he with the pleasantest smile 
ever was. 

“No, I don’t, either. I don’t like little boys. 
They make faces and call names. I want it 


AUNTIE MAY'S VALENTINE 83 

for my darling auntie May, who hasn’t any one 
to love her but just me.” 

“ What is your name, my dear,” he asked, 
putting his hand in his pocket. 

I knew he was feeling for a penny for me, — 
course I didn’t ask him for it ; I never would 
do that , — and I’d ’bout made up my mind not 
to get the valentine, but to buy a turkey 
instead, when he asked again, — 

“ Is your name May too ? ” 

“Yes, sir. My name is just like auntie’s; 
but I don’t see how you could tell, we don’t 
look one single bit alike. Both of our names 
are May Hiller, sir.” 

He said something in a quick, sharp voice, 
and turned so white that I thought he’d cut 
his hand against his knife in his pocket. A 
little boy who lived in the house with us once 
always forgot to shut the blade of his knife into 
the handle ; and I thought that maybe he had 
forgot too. But when he took his hand out 


8 4 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


of his pocket there wasn’t any blood on it, nor 
any pennies in it either. I was dreadfully dis- 
appointed. I had been so sure of the valentine 
or the turkey for auntie.” 

“ Is your auntie May married ? ” he asked, 
bending down to look me right in the face. 

“ Auntie hasn’t any one but just me, if that 
is what you mean. She don’t like men any 
more’n I like boys,” I said. 

“ Little May, suppose you take me home 
with you, and give me to your aunt for a 
valentine,” he said, as if he had just thought 
of it. 

“She’d ever so much rather have a turkey,” 
said I, stepping back from him. He acted so 
queer that I was ’most afraid of him ; and, any- 
how, who ever heard of such a valentine be- 
fore ? 

When I said “ she’d rather have a turkey,” 
he laughed as though he thought it would be 
so funny to take her a turkey ; but then, he 


AUNTIE MAY'S VALENTINE 


35 


wasn’t hungry, and couldn’t know how good a 
turkey would taste. 

“We’ll take the turkey too,” he said quickly. 
I ’spect he wanted to make up to me for laugh- 
ing. “And you shall have such a nice supper, 
if you will take me to your auntie May.” 

I remembered that there wasn’t to be any 
supper for us that night, and I was getting so 
hungry I’d have done almost any thing for 
something to eat : so I took him home with me, 
up those lots of steps, straight to our room. I 
opened the door and called out, — 

“Auntie May, I’ve brought you a valentine 
and a turkey.” 

Auntie turned around from the window where 
she was sewing on that tiresome shirt ; and 
when she saw the big man standing there 
behind ’me, she put out her hands and said, — 

“O Walter!” 

Then he walked right over to her, and took 
her in his arms as if she was a little girl, and 


86 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


kissed her a lot of times ; and they didn’t pay 
the leastest speck of ’tention to me or the 
turkey for much as a minute. It was so funny ; 
but then he was her valentine, and I s’pose 
it was all right. 

After a while they called me to them, and 
auntie looked so pretty with the sparkle in her 
eyes, as she said, — 

“This is Mr. Archer, May.” 

But he took me on his knee, and whispered 
in my ear, — 

“You are not to call me Mr. Archer, but 
uncle Walter.” 

Well, here we are in a great house forty times 
too big for us, and uncle Walter is the splen- 
didest man that ever was, and auntie May is 
the beautifulest lady, and they is both going 
to give me lots of pennies for my valentines 
next year. 


FEBRUARY 


Softly falls the winter sunshine, 

With a brighter, warmer glow, 

Over frozen fields and meadows, 

’Neath their coverlet of snow. 

And the resting earth rejoices, 

Where its blossom children lie; 

They are stirring, they are waking, 

They are coming by and by. 

They are busy getting ready, 

On the hill and by the brook. 

We may find the first spring baby 
In some cosey, sheltered nook. 

Soon the rest will lift bright faces 
From their warm beds where they lie 

They are stirring, they are waking, 

They are coming by and by. 


87 














































































. 



































































; ' I 1 












EASTER T)AY 


c i 'Ring , oh, happy Easter hells! 

TZing the birth of spring-time vernal ! 

7 ling the endless love supernal! 

^Rpng the dawn of better days , 
Hearts of truth, and songs of praise. 


\ 

















































ONE FLOWER FOR NELLY 


“ I wonder if this is heaven. The flowers are 
here, and how could any thing be nicer than 
this ? " 

A little child with a tangled mass of unkept 
hair, and a thin, wan face whose every curve 
and outline told a pathetic story of want and 
suffering, stepped timidly into the grand marble- 
floored entrance of the great church, and peered 
cautiously within. 

No wonder the little child thought it was 
heaven, — this mammoth church with its high- 
arched roof, and its beautiful, artistic windows 
through which the declining sun sent long, bril- 
liant lines of blue and crimson and gold, making 
bright little patches all over the cushioned seats 
and carpeted floor. There were mounds of 

91 


92 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


flowers, anchors and crosses, and great flaming 
stars. Flowers twined about the white columns, 
and shook their fragrance down from the chancel 
dome. Green-leaved ivies trailed over and across 
the windows. Scarlet geraniums flashed up from 
emerald beds in every conceivable nook and 
corner; while away down the long aisle — a vast 
distance to the wondering child — was a perfect 
tower of blossoms, surrounded by vividly emerald 
leaves ; and suspended, as it seemed to her, in 
mid-air, was a cross of creamy, wax-like calla 
lilies ; over this, a crown of the same artistic 
device and beauty. 

“ It is — it must be heaven,” she whispered, 
venturing timidly inside the open door. 

“ There, Bertha, I’ve finished the arch, and 
there’s nothing more to do. I’m completely 
tired out with my unusual exertion to-day ; but 
now that the decorations are finished, isn’t the 
church lovely ? ” 

The clear-toned girlish voice came floating 


ONE FLOWER FOR NELLY 


93 


down the long, dim aisle to where the child was 
standing. 

How soft and warm the carpet was under her 
blue, bare feet ; how hushed the great, glorious 
place had been until that sweet voice aroused its 
murmuring echoes, when all the little corners and 
crevices seemed filled with tiny voices that car- 
ried the low, melodious tones from one to 
another ! 

“It is more than lovely, it is beautiful,” an- 
swered another girlish voice ; and the little child 
discovered the group of happy young faces, 
flushed and tired, but so bright and joyous, at 
the farther end of the church, where the floral 
decorations were the most abundant. 

“ Let us sing our Easter anthem once more 
before we go home,” said the first speaker, 
moving toward the organ. 

Clear and sweet arose the notes of melody from 
beneath the touch of Clare Dinsmore’s skilful 
fingers. Sweet and clear, with a glad triumphal 


94 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


thrill, arose the four young voices mingling in the 
joyous Easter anthem. 

“ I know it’s heaven now,” murmured the child, 
in an awed whisper. “ There was every single 
thing here that Nelly told me about but the 
angels and the singing ; and now here they are, 
and I know that I’ve found heaven. Nelly’ll come 
to-morrow, maybe. It’s such a pretty, warm place 
to stay in. How glad poor Nelly’ll be ! ” 

The last note of the music died away, far up 
among the arches overhead, with a lingering, 
wavering sound ; and ere its echo had ceased to 
vibrate through the church, a long-drawn breath, 
as if some over-charged heart were thus seeking 
relief, attracted Clare’s attention. 

“ What was that ? ” she asked quickly, turning 
in the direction from whence the sound proceeded. 

“ It’s a little girl,” she added, drawing the 
timid child out from a nook, where she was en- 
deavoring to escape observation. “Who are 
you, little one ? ” 


ONE FLOWER FOR NELLY 


95 


“ I’m Flossie. And, please, are you an 
angel ? ” 

One little hand went out shyly, and just 
touched Clare's pretty dress cautiously. 

“ O Ada ! ” cried one of the girls, “ this child 
thinks Clare is an angel.” 

The merry group gathered about, and ques- 
tioned the little trespasser. 

“ Why do you think I am an angel ? ” Clare 
asked softly, with a strange sensation thrilling 
her. 

“ ’ Cause this is heaven, isn’t it ? ” the wee one’s 
large, solemn eyes lifted and rested their gaze 
upon the cross of calla lilies. 

“ Heaven ? Oh, no, it is only God’s earthly 
tabernacle ! ” Then, seeing that her explanation 
had confused the child, she added, — 

“This is a church where people, come to 
worship God.” 

“Oh!” sighed Flossie, with another earnest, 
sweeping glance, that took in all of the beauty 


9 6 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


and magnificence about her. “Nelly told me 
about heaven this morning; and she said that* 
maybe she’d spend her Easter, this year, with 
Jesus in his own heavenly home. She told me 
all about the flowers and the music, and said 
that heaven was very beautiful : so I thought 
this surely must be heaven. I’m sorry, ’cause 
I’d like to go with Nelly ; and I can’t go very 
far, I’m too little. I don’t know whatever I’ll 
do when Nelly’s gone. She’s all the mother 
I’ve had for years and years ” (the child’s age 
numbered scarcely six). “ She said if it wasn’t 
for me, she’d be glad to go : she’s so tired and 
cold and hungry. Oh, I wish I could have one, 
just a tiny little one, for Nelly!” 

Flossie had not taken her eyes from the 
flowers while she was speaking ; and Clare, bend- 
ing over her with a misty light in her blue eyes, 
asked, — 

“What is it you want for Nelly, dear?” 

“One flower, — just a wee one for poor sick 


ONE FLOWER FOR NELLY 


97 


Nelly. Jesus won’t miss one little bud, when he’s 
got so many ; and Nelly’d be so glad.” 

Clare drew the child into her arms, and dropped 
a sympathetic tear and kiss on her face. 

“ Do you live far from here ? ” asked one of the 
girls, while Clare began to arrange a bouquet for 
the sick girl. 

“ Only a little way back of the church. Nelly 
don’t want me to go out in the street alone ; but 
Nelly went to sleep, and it was so still and cold 
in the room, I thought that maybe the sun’d warm 
me if I was out in it. Then I saw this great door 
open here, and it looked so pretty and smelled so 
sweet in here, that I came in. Was I very 
naughty ? ” 

The large wistful eyes were raised beseechingly. 

“No, dear,” said Clare gently, kneeling down 
beside her, and filling her small hands with blos- 
soms. “ She is such a baby, too,” she added 
softly, as though communing with some thought 
in her busy brain. “ Girls, I must go home with 


9 8 


THE YEAR'S BEST BAYS 


her. I never saw any thing so pitiful as this 
before.” 

She touched the thin little face with her soft 
white hand as she spoke. 

“ I will go with you, Clare,” replied Bertha. 

Then the two young ladies, in their rich attire, 
with the ragged child between them, went out of 
the church into the street. 

On Michigan Avenue, in the city of Chicago, 
several years ago, this fine church of which I 
have been writing stood with its front portal 
opening on to the handsome street, while just at 
the back, not more than two blocks away, were 
the habitations of the poor. It was but a few 
steps from wealth, beauty, and fragrance, to pov- 
erty and squalor. 

Up a flight of stairs, when they had reached 
the place, wee Flossie conducted her guests, to 
whom this was a novel experience, and whose 
warm young hearts grew tenderer and more sym- 
pathetic with every step. Presently the child 


ONE FLOWER FOR NELLY 


99 


pushed open a door with her tiny hands, and ran 
before them into the cheerless room. 

“Wake up, Nelly, and see the pretty flowers 
I’ve brought you,” cried Flossie excitedly, going 
over to the miserable bed, on which lay the form 
of a young girl, so fair and frail, in the solemn 
hush of the low-walled, dingy room. Her long, 
dark lashes swept her cheeks ; her face was so 
peaceful, that no shadow of earth’s sorrows rested 
on it while she slept ; and her slender, wax-like 
hands were folded on her breast. 

She stirred uneasily as Flossie approached the 
bed, and a spasm of pain flitted across her face. 
But the moment her eyes beheld the flowers, she 
uttered a glad little cry, and reached her thin 
hands for them. 

“We have come to help you,” said Clare, ad- 
vancing into the room. “Your little sister asked 
me if I were an angel ; and I feel that I would 
like to be a ministering angel, and minister to 
your needs.” 


100 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


The sick girl, with her cheek pillowed among 
the fragrant Easter flowers, looked up with grate- 
ful eyes, and said, — 

“ If I could only know that Flossie will be 
cared for when I am gone, it would be all that I 
desire. As for ffie, I shall soon be past all the 
care and the trouble.” 

“I hope not,” replied Clare hopefully. “You 
are young, and it may be that you will live many 
years to care for her yourself. Medical aid, 
proper food, and skilful nursing will do wonders 
for you, I believe. At least, you shall have the 
benefit of them. I will leave you now ; but, when 
I send for you, you must- not refuse to come.” 

An hour later, the Dinsmore carriage stood in 
front of the old house ; and the housekeeper, a 
kind, motherly woman, with the coachman’s assist- 
ance, removed the sick girl to it, wrapping her 
in shawls and blankets brought with them for 
this purpose. 

Clare’s mother had been dead several years ; 


ONE FLOWER FOR NELLY 


IOI 


but being an only child, and worthy of trust, her 
father usually permitted her to follow her own 
inclination, and she rarely made mistakes. This 
accounts for her doing so unusual a thing as the 
removal of a sick girl and her little sister to her 
elegant home, without first consulting her father. 
She knew his loving, sympathetic heart would not 
say her “ nay,” and she felt that the delay which 
would be necessary to lay her plans before her 
father might prove fatal to Nelly. 

Nor did her father reprove her. As he sat in 
the church Clare’s hands had helped to decorate 
in memory of our Saviour’s resurrection from 
the dead, and listened to the beautiful Easter 
services, he felt certain that Christ, who for three 
and thirty years had never turned a deaf ear to 
the cry of suffering humanity, would bless her 
loving deed of charity. 

Sitting there in the beauty and fragrance of the 
Easter sabbath, he decided that when Clare’s 
task was finished, and Nelly had regained her 


102 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


usual health, he would see to it that poverty and 
hunger should never again visit her or the little 
sister who had begged one flower for Nelly from 
among the blossoms that filled the great church 
with their sweet-breathed bloom. 


WAS IT AN APRIL FOOL 


April Fool's Day came on Easter Sunday 
that year ; but Rob an’ I neglected to count 
up, as we ought to have done. We live at 
grandpa White’s. He’s a nice old man ; an’ 
grandma is nice too, with the sharpest eyes, that 
look a fellow right through. I do actually believe 
that she can tell what Rob an’ I are thinking of, 
when there isn’t a hint spoken. 

Grandpa hasn’t many hens ; not more’n a 
dozen, I should think, ’cause a skunk came 
prowlin’ about the barn last winter. 

One day Rob an’ I got a sight of it, — a pretty 
little feller, with white spots on him ; an’ Rob 
shied a stone at him, an’ oh, my ! you’d ought’er 
have been there. The way Rob an’ I got out o’ 
that place was lively, now, I can tell you ; an’ 

103 


104 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


grandma wouldn’t let us eat at the table with 
her for more’n a week. But I wouldn’t wonder if 
we scared him away ; for there wasn’t any more 
hens missin’, an’ they began to lay six or seven 
eggs a day, after that. 

We made a hole under the barn floor, an’ began 
to hide eggs for Easter real early in March, so’s 
to have a plenty. 

Grandma wondered an’ wondered what had got 
into them hens to stop layin’ all of a sudden : 
an’ she sort of s’picioned Rob an’ I. I know she 
did, by the way she looked at us when she spoke 
of eggs. But we never let on at all; just kept 
our faces turned away from each other, though 
I did catch a glimpse o’ Rob’s face once, durin’ 
the most tryin’ an’ embarrassin’ time of her 
s’picionings, an’ he was a-twistin’ of it into the 
most comical shapes ever was ; quirkin’ up his 
eyes, an’ d rawin’ down his mouth, tryin’ to 
look innocent an’ unconcerned. I snickered 
right out, I couldn’t help it ; an’ a queer look 


WAS IT AN APRIL FOOL 


105 


came into grandma’s face, — a — a sort o’ satisfied 
look, as if her mind was set at rest. 

She didn’t s’picion round after that, an’ we 
reckoned she’d made up her mind that the hens 
were through layin’ for that year ; though the big 
yeller hen, an’ the black one, an’ old speckle 
made the greatest racket you ever heard, every 
time they laid an egg. 

Rob an’ I know that there hadn’t a single egg 
gone into the house for more’n a week ; an’ just 
the day before Easter, what do you think 
grandma did ? 

She told Rob an’ me to run over to aunt 
Mandy’s, an’ invite the hull family (there’s six 
girls, an’ not a boy among em’ ; an’ Rob an’ I 
just detest girls) to come over the next day, 
after meetin’ was out, and eat Easter eggs. 

“Why, grandma,” says Rob; “where are you 
goin’ to get the eggs for so many ?” 

Grandma smiled queer like, an’ said she 
couldn’t just tell where, but most likely she’d 
scrape up a few. 


io 6 


THE YEAR'S BEST BAYS 


Just as quick as ever we could slip away ’thout 
attractin’ her notice, we scampered out to the 
barn to see if our eggs were safe. They were all 
there, an’ we felt easier in our minds after that. 

The next day we asked grandma if she’d skuse 
us for the day, as we didn’t like girls very well ; 
an’ she, knowin’ how we felt about ’em, said she 
would, an’ asked if we wouldn’t be home to dinner. 

We said we wouldn’t want any dinner. You 
see, we thought of them eggs ; an’ we knew that 
when we’d ate forty big hen’s eggs, we wouldn’t 
want any thing else. 

We had a dreadful time to get the old brass 
kettle an’ our eggs into the woods, without 
grandpa seein’ us. It really did seem as if he 
had more out-door work than usual that morning ; 
an’ it was Sunday, too. 

Well, after a while, we got away ; an’ we had 
just sat down to rest a spell, in the corner of a 
fence, when who do you s’pose we saw a-comin’ 
across the field, right toward us ? 


WAS IT AN APRIL FOOL 


107 


It was grandpa. He was walkin’ slowly, with 
his head down, as if in deep thought. 

“ We’ll have to hide the eggs quick,” said Rob. 
“ He hasn’t seen us yet, an’ we’ll have plenty of 
time.” 

So we took the kettle, with the eggs in it, 
away up the fence to where a hazel bush grew on 
the other side, an’ chucked it right into the 
thickest part of the bush. Then we came back 
to where we’d been sittin’ before, an’ sat down an’ 
whittled sticks real careless and unconcerned like. 

Pretty soon grandpa came up to us. He got 
most to us before he saw us at all. Then he 
started an’ looked surprised. 

“ Bless me, if it ain’t the boys ! ” he said. 
“ It’s such a pleasant mornin’,” he went on to 
say, “that I thought I’d take a little ramble 
in the woods ; but I find that my legs ain’t so 
young as they used to be. They get tired 
quicker: so I reckon I’ll get over the fence 
into the road, and go back home.” 


io8 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


He began to walk up alongside o’ the fence, 
lookin’ for a good low place to get over. 

Rob an’ I began to get excited, an’ I could 
feel the sweat a-comin’ out under my hair ; for 
he was gettin’ pretty close to the hazel bush, 
where we’d hid the eggs. 

“ Here’s a nice low place, grandpa,” I sug- 
gested, just before he reached the hazel bush. 

Grandpa stopped, and began to get over the 
fence. Rob an’ I drew a long breath of relief ; 
but we drawed the breath too soon, for grandpa 
stopped, and said, — 

“ No, I won’t attempt it here. I’m sure that 
top rail is rotten. I’d better not risk it here.” 

An’ we couldn’t convince him that the rail 
was plenty stout enough to hold him up, though 
we tried; but he went right on, sort o’ testin’ 
the strength of the rails, until he came to the 
very spot where we’d hid our eggs. 

“ I think this will be a good place to get 
over,” he said, an’ Rob an’ I fairly held our 


WAS IT AN APRIL FOOL 


109 


breaths, hopin’ that he mightn’t step into the 
kettle of eggs, or even see them. 

But the next minute we knew that he’d 
discovered ’em. 

“Hullo, what’s this, boys?” he asked, real 
excited like. “ Grandma’s old brass kettle, as I 
live ! I haven’t seen that kettle for some time. 
I reckoned it had been stole. I remember now I 
had it out to the sugar-bush one day to get 
sap in, an’ I must ’a’ left it right here myself. 
Why, boys, I do believe there’s somethin’ in 
it,” he went on to say, as he stooped down and 
poked the hazel twigs aside. “ Bless me, if it 
ain’t e’en-a-most full o’ eggs ! I thought them 
hens had been a-stealin’ of their nests, an’ I’ve 
hunted everywhere. It’s curious, though, that 
they should ’a’ found the old kettle, an’ that they 
should ’a’ come away off here, just to lay. Well, 
well, strange things do happen sometimes. Your 
grandma’ll be right glad to get these eggs. They’ll 
help her out amazin’ on her dinner to-day.” 


IIO THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 

Then he took the kettle with our dinner in 
it, an’ walked off, as chirk as you please, never 
once looking back at us. 

We waited till he was out o’ sight ’n hearin’, 
then we looked at each other, disappointed like ; 
then we laughed, an’ finally we just rolled on 
the grass an’ laughed, it was so funny, the way 
grandpa came to happen on to the very spot 
where we’d hid the eggs ; and then, as grandpa 
said, it was so curious, too. 

We thought we wouldn’t go home to dinner, 
for fear they’d mistrust somethin’ or ruther; 
but ’long about dinner-time we got so hungry 
we was most starved (we hadn’t eaten much 
breakfast, savin’ our appetite for the eggs), an’ 
we had to give up an’ go home. 

They was just a-settin’ down to the table 
when we got there, an’ my ! but didn’t the big 
dish of boiled eggs, right in the centre of the 
table, look good, though ! 

“ 1 thought that your stomachs would be 



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IV AS IT AN APRIL FOOL 


I 


a-sendin’ of you home about dinner-time,” said 
grandma, real kind and pleasant, as she brought 
two more plates out of the buttery, and fixed a place 
for us between aunt Mandy’s two sauciest girls. 

An’ there we had to sit an’ eat our dinner, 
while grandpa told them how he’d found the 
eggs, an’ every thing ; and everybody looked 
at us, an’ our faces got red as beets, an’ cracky ! 
but didn’t my ears burn, though ! 

“Somebody’s talkin’ ’bout Phil,” hollered out 
Sadie Marks, aunt Mandy’s biggest girl: “just 
see how red his ears are.” 

Then everybody turned their ’special atten- 
tion on me ; an’ I was jest a-swallowin’, an’ Rob 
nudged me under the table with his foot, an’ 1 
choked an’ sputtered, an’ had to leave the table 
in disgrace. 

Then Rob went to take a drink of water, an’ 
he choked an’ coughed, an’ had to come too ; 
an’ just as we was leavin’ the dinin’-room, we 
heard grandpa say, — 


1 12 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


“I wonder if the boys have thought that it’s 
April Fool’s Day as well as Easter.” 

What do you s’pose he could have meant ? 

Rob an’ I asked each other if maybe grandpa 
hadn’t come an April fool on us, when he got 
our eggs an’ fooled us out of our dinner ; but 
we never were quite sure about it. 


EASTER FLOWERS OF TEXAS 


These are the flowers of Texas, 

When Spring of fabled renown 
Shakes her golden tresses down, 

And lavishly scatters her treasures 
Over fields and meadows brown ; 

Sweet little poppies in pink and white 
Flapping their wide-rimmed caps ; 

Demure mother lark-spurs holding tight 
The wee bud-spurs in their laps ; 

Shy-faced verbenas in lavender ; 
Rain-lilies so prim and fair. 

The blossom fairies are all astir, 

And roses bloom everywhere. 

These are the Easter blossoms 

When Nature’s heart throbs and beats 
With its glad, pulsating sweets, 

That burst into bloom by the wayside, 


Z1 3 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


114 


And crowd in the city streets. 

Pretty post-oak pinks in scarlet gowns ; 

Tall yucca, a waxen tower ; 

Primroses casting their yellow crowns 
At the feet of the passion flower; 
Blue-bonnets stand in the pomegranate lane 
While the mountains, stern and bare, 
With cactus blossoms are all aflame, — 

For the flowers are everywhere. 


THANKSGIVING T>AY 

We bring our hearts' best offering, 
As earth grows brown and sere, 
To lay before the mighty King, 
Who rules the rolling year. 



TED AND TOTS THANKSGIVING 
DINNER 


He ran down the steps very fast, and came to 
an abrupt stop when he had reached the corner. 
Thrusting both hands deep into his pants’ 
pockets, he stood quite still for several minutes, 
whistling “Yankee Doodle.” But the vim and 
energy with which he usually whistled that 
national air were utterly wanting ; and there was 
a mournful cadence to the boy’s whistle, that 
corresponded exactly with the perplexed pucker 
between his dark eyebrows, and the solemn 
expression in the thoughtful brown eyes. 

“ It must be done somehow,” he said reflec- 
tively, leaving “Yankee Doodle” but half 
whistled, in order to use his lips for the 
purpose of speaking. “ They must have a 


1J 7 


1 18 THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 

Thanksgiving dinner. But how am I to get 
even so much as an apple for them with the 
little mite that I can earn ? I can’t tell how. 
But it must be managed in some way.” 

He resumed his walk down the street and 
the national tune at the same time ; a well- 
built, sturdy little fellow of eleven years, with 
clear, thoughtful eyes, and a brave, honest 
face, which would have been sufficient surety 
for his good behavior anywhere. 

“ Never mind, Nat ; you ’n I’ll manage it 
in some way,” said he, flinging off the shadow 
of doubt that had settled over his bright face. 
“If God’s a-going to answer Ted and Tot’s 
prayer, as they think he will, he’ll make a way 
for me to help him do it, ’cause I’m the only 
one there is to help him now.” 

There came a pitiful quiver into Nat’s voice 
as he uttered the last sentence, and he had 
a fierce little battle with himself to keep the 
tears out of his eyes. It was such a little while 


TED AND TOT'S THANKSGIVING 1 19 

since he had heard the doleful sound of the 
dirt falling heavily on the cheap pine coffin 
that held the remains of “as darling a mother 
as ever a boy had.” That is what he would 
have said, what he often did say, in order to 
keep his courage from utterly failing, when he 
thought of those two little ones at home, 
wholly dependent upon him for their daily 
bread. 

I am quite sure you will agree with me that 
the little fellow had undertaken a most difficult 
and serious task. But since his mother’s death, 
more than a week before, he had supplied their 
wants and his own by doing odd jobs and 
errands. 

Fortunately for him and his brave under- 
taking, he lived in a country where it was not 
necessary to make calculations, and “lay in” 
supplies for the future. They lived in the far 
southern city of San Antonio, Tex., these little 
orphaned children whose story I am telling ; 


20 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


and, though it was late in November, they had 
needed no fire as yet. The few “cold-breathed 
northers ” that had already come were of short 
duration, and had been met by the thoughtful 
Nat in this way : He had wrapped the little 
ones in blankets, tucking their few toys, con- 
sisting mostly of clay images moulded out of 
the adobe San Antonio soil by his own skilful 
fingers, in with them, telling them to keep 
snug in their warm nest until the sun had 
warmed the out-doors, and then to run out 
in it. As for himself, he depended on his 
activity to keep the blood well circulating, and 
in this way battled with the cold. 

But they could scarcely live in this manner 
all winter. There were colder “ northers ” 
that were soon to come, and what would the 
poor little motherless “chicks” do then? 
It is a great responsibility for any one to be 
burdened with a family at the beginning of 
winter, and especially so if that “one” is only 



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TED AND TOTS THANKSGIVING 12 1 


eleven years old, and has blit little experience 
with the “cares of life.” 

But the coming winter did not trouble Nat 
on the morning of which we speak. “ Sufficient 
for the day is the evil thereof.” Nat’s mind 
was wholly concerned about a Thanksgiving 
dinner for Ted and Tot. 

“ Hold my horse a minute, bub ! ” called a 
rough-voiced “ cow-boy ” with a broad-rimmed 
hat and big-topped boots, as, springing to the 
ground, he flung the bridle to Nat’s outstretched 
hand. 

He was gone several minutes, and Nat began 
to get uneasy. It was such precious time to 
this care-burdened little man, because to-morrow 
would be Thanksgiving ; and if he earned that 
dinner for the “wee ones” at home, he ought 
to be about it. People often mistook him for 
a gratuitous hitching-post, and how could he 
tell that this “cow-boy” had not made a similar 
mistake ? 


122 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


Presently, however, the man returned ; and, as 
he sprang carelessly into the saddle, he flung 
Nat a shining silver “two-bit” piece. 

“ Cow-boys are mostly generous,” said Nat 
gleefully, pocketing his treasure, and resuming 
his journey “down-town.” “I couldn’t have 
done better at any thing for the little time I was 
at it*. I reckon that God is a-helping me to 
get a Thanksgiving dinner for the chicks at 
home.” 

Stepping into a large grocery-store, Nat looked 
about for the proprietor. 

Every one was busy flying about, dodging each 
other, doing up packages, and filling baskets 
and baskets with them, in a way that was 
quite bewildering to Nat. Some of the boys 
seemed to be engaged for the especial purpose 
of getting into people’s way, and creating 
general confusion. 

“ I suppose they are bobbing about so as to 
make it seem like lively times in here. I am 


TED AND TOT'S THANKSGIVING 1 23 

sure I could bob about as spry as any one of 
them,” he thought. 

Discovering a fine-looking man who seemed 
to have the general management, Nat decided 
that he was the owner of the establishment, 
and, waiting patiently until he was disengaged, 
Nat lifted his rimless hat respectfully and 
addressed him, — 

“ Please, sir, do you want to hire some more 
help ? I’d like a big job, sir, so that I can 
earn enough money for a ‘ boss ’ Thanksgiving 
dinner.” 

“ Eh ? ” The gentleman turned and looked 
down into Nat’s flushed, eager face. Something 
in those bright, expectant eyes attracted his 
attention. 

“ I suppose you want the genuine thing, — 
turkey, cranberry-sauce, plum-pudding, and all?” 
he asked, with a severely grave countenance, but 
a shy twinkle of amusement lurking in the 
corners of his eyes. 


124 THE YEAR'P best days 

“Yes, sir; just enough for two. And I’d like 
two oranges to top off with.” 

“ What ! after topping off once with plum- 
pudding? You are extravagant.” 

“ Well, I don’t suppose they’d mind topping 
off twice, just for once ; seeing as they don’t get 
much of any thing on other days.” 

“ They ? ” questioned the gentleman, becoming 
interested. “ I thought that you were to be one 
of the partakers of the Thanksgiving feast.” 

“ No, indeed, sir. I shall be thankful enough 
if I can only get a dinner for Ted and Tot.” 

“ Who are Ted and Tot ? ” 

“ My little brother and sister, sir. They’re 
twins, not quite six years old. I heard them 
asking God to send them a ‘ heap ’ of Thanks- 
giving dinner this year, so that they’d never be 
hungry again ; and I made up my mind that they 
should have the dinner, if I could get it. You 
see, sir, they’re little things, and don’t know that 
they can’t eat enough at once to last for always.” 


TED AND TOT'S THANKSGIVING 125 


“ To be sure/’ said the man, growing more 
and more interested. “ But where are your 
parents ? ” 

“ Both dead, sir; mother only a week ago;” 
and the boy’s ragged coat-sleeve did service for a 
handkerchief, to wipe away the gathering mists 
that mother’s name had called into his eyes. 

•‘You don’t mean to tell me that you are 
taking care of the little ones yourself,” questioned 
the gentleman almost incredulously. 

“And why not, sir? I’m past eleven.” Nat 
straightened himself up proudly, thereby adding 
fully two inches to his height. 

“Sure enough. You ought to be able to do 
it, my boy.” There was a sudden and suspicious 
hoarseness in the man’s voice. “ Did the 
children tell God what they wanted for dinner? ” 

“Yes, sir; but, you see, they’ve never had a 
real Thanksgiving dinner, and they didn’t know 
what to ask for,” replied Nat, with a painful 
blush at the children’s ignorance on such an 


2 6 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


important subject. “ I had a really Thanksgiving 
dinner at my grandma’s in Indiana once, when 
I was a little shaver ; and I’ve always remembered 
it. That was a long time ago, before everybody 
died.” 

“Tell me what the babies as&ed for,” persisted 
the stranger. 

Nat fidgeted about uneasily for a moment or 
two. After knocking a large chunk of mud 
from the side of his foot, he replied,— 

“They just asked him for some corn-bread and 
molasses, and an orange. They told him they 
wanted ‘ heaps ’ and ‘ heaps ’ of corn-bread, and 
a whole panful of molasses to sop it in ; but 
they could make one orange do, ’cause they 
could divide that a-tween them.” 

“ Poor little rats,” muttered the man, turning 
suddenly aside, and kicking a potato out of his 
way. Then confronting Nat again, he asked, — 

“ How hard will you be willing to work, in 
order to buy this dinner for them ? You must 


TED AND TOT'S THANKSGIVING 1 27 


remember that it takes a great deal of money to 
buy a good Thanksgiving dinner.” 

“ I’ll work every minute a-tween this time and 
dinner-time to-morrow,” cried Nat, his face 
radiating with hopeful expectancy. 

“You don’t mean to say that you will work 
all night ? ” 

“Just try me and see. Of course I’ll have to 
run home at supper-time, and again at the chicks’ 
bed-time ; but we don’t live far, and I won’t lose 
much time, I promise.” 

“ Here, Davis, set this boy to work,” said the 
man, in a gruff voice. Then in a lower tone, 
aside to Davis : “Any thing to keep him busy. 
I mean to give him a severe test ; and if he is 
made of the right stuff, as I think he is, I will 
see that he has steady employment.” 

“What’s to hinder us from doing it?” he 
mused, on his way home to supper. He had 
left Nat with his jacket off, and the perspiration 
dripping from his flushed, happy face, hard at 


128 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


work, carrying potatoes and onions from one box 
to another, not even suspecting that it was only 
a ruse to keep him busy at hard work, in order 
to test him. “ The boy’d kill himself before 
morning, if I adhered to my first intentions and 
let him work all night. I think I’ll have to let 
him off at eleven o’clock. I need just such an 
active, wide-awake boy in the grocery. I don’t 
think he would stop to play marbles if I sent 
him of an errand. But there’s the little ones. 
He can’t take care of them. They need 
a woman’s care. Mary has always lamented 
because we had no children of our own. Now, 
if these little ones should prove to be as bright 
and interesting as their brother — Well, well, I 
think I’ll take her to witness that feast to- 
morrow, and let future events take care of 
themselves.” 

You must imagine just how faithfully sturdy 
little Nat worked at his useless task, until far 
into the night ; for he was thoroughly in earnest, 


TED AND TONS THANKSGIVING 129 


and stood the test beyond Mr. Lee’s most 
sanguine expectations. 

The following day, after partaking of their 
lonely Thanksgiving, during which Mrs. Lee had 
remarked that she did wish there were some 
dear little faces to brighten up the feast, Mr. Lee 
induced his wife to take a walk with him, at the 
right time to witness, through the uncurtained 
windows of the little old house, the feast he had 
prepared for Nat to carry home at a specified 
hour. 

The little house, Nat’s home, was not far from 
Mr. Lee’s home; so near, in fact, that he wondered 
he had not heard of the destitute family before. 

“Hurrah, chicks! Where are you?” cried 
Nat, bursting open the door, and swinging the 
basket into the middle of the room. “ Here’s 
your Thanksgiving dinner.” 

Two shivering mites of humanity crept out 
from among the blankets, and scampered across 
the floor to the basket. 


30 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


“ I knowed he’d send it,” said Ted ungrammati- 
cally. “ Did he gived it to you to bring, Nattie ; 
an’ oh, say, how does God look ? ” 

“Corn-bread an’ ’lasses ?” questioned Tot, with 
wide-open, wondering eyes. 

“Better than that,” responded Nat, triumph- 
antly lifting the basket lid, and setting out a pie. 

“O Teddie, just smell,” exclaimed Tot, poking 
her pink nose into the basket. “ What a good 
God he is to send it ! Gooder ’n any thing.” 

“Yes, he’s the best feller,” mumbled Ted, with 
his mouth full of pie. 

A quick, sympathetic sob beside Mr. Lee drew 
that gentleman’s attention from the little group 
within to his companion. 

“O Hugh! it just breaks my heart to see the 
pretty, motherless babies,” she said softly. “ Did 
you ever hear a more fervent return of thanks in 
your life than when that wee girlie said, ‘ What a 
good God he is ’ ? ” 

“ Never,” replied her husband feelingly. 


TED AND TOTS THANKSGIVING 13 1 

“They are such bright little things, and so 
pretty,” continued Mrs. Lee. “ If they had good 
care, and plenty of love sprinkled into their lives, 
they would be very interesting children.” 

“ Very ! ” emphatically. 

“ I would be perfectly happy if God had given 
me two such children ; and it is a shame to have 
them so neglected.” 

She hesitated. 

“Well, Mary?” re-assuringly. 

“ O Hugh ! can’t you guess what I would like 
better than any thing else, this. Thanksgiving 
day ? ” 

“ I brought you here for the express purpose of 
enticing you into making the request that is in 
your heart, Mary,” he replied. “ God has blessed 
us abundantly in worldly things, but he has de- 
nied us children. Here are two little ones with- 
out parents. Our duty seems plain to me. Shall 
we adopt them as our own ? ” 

“Yes, oh, yes! I long to cuddle them in 


132 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


my arms, the darlings. And the other boy, 
Hugh?” 

“ I need him, and you need the little ones. I 
propose that we adopt the entire family at once.” 

That night two golden heads lay side by side 
on a snowy pillow in a cosey bed at Mrs. Lee’s 
home, and above them bent her loving face, while 
her heart thanked God for “ her children ; ” and 
for a whole week afterward, Nat’s jacket seemed 
too small to afford space for the happy, tumult- 
uous throbbings of the great heart underneath. 


A THANKSGIVING PIE 


HOW CHARLIE KEPT THE GOLDEN RULE 

“ Please, marm, do you want a boy ? ” 

“No, indeed,” replied Mrs. Harper carelessly 
without so much as turning to look at the child 
who addressed her. “ My own boy keeps me in a 
continual worry, and I don’t know what I would 
do if I had another.” 

“ I didn’t ask to be ’dopted, marm, only hired. 
Ain’t there somethin’ I can do ’bout the house ? 
I can scrub steps beau’fully, an’ run o’ errands, 
an’ — an’ most every thing.” 

The wistful earnestness in the child’s voice 
attracted Mrs. Harper’s attention, and she turned 
her head to look at him. 

She was standing in her own front door when 
he accosted her, looking down the street in hopes 

J 33 


134 


THE YEAR'S BEST BAYS 


of seeing a late milkman. Bridget lacked a pint 
of milk for the Thanksgiving pumpkin-pies, be- 
cause Charlie, her own little boy, had found the 
milk-pitcher. He usually found things on the 
busiest days. 

“ Dear me ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Harper, as her 
eyes fell on the forlorn little figure at her side. 
“ What a little fellow you are to be looking for 
employment! Not much larger than my five-year- 
old Charlie ; and I should be very much worried 
if Charlie was out in the street alone/’ 

“ But I’m lots older ’n I am big,” said the child, 
stretching his small self to his full height, and 
balancing on his tip-toes as he spoke. “ I’m nine 
years old, an’ you just ought’er see me work.” 

“ I’ve no doubt you do nicely ; but run home to 
your mamma, and wait until you are older before 
you offer your services,” she said, as she turned 
away from the door, and closed it behind her. 

“ I ain’t too little to get awfully hungry, an’ 
I ain’t got no mamma to run home to,” sobbed 


A THANKSGIVING PIE 


135 


the child, as a whiff of something spicy and 
good was blown into his face just before the 
door closed. 

“ Don’t feel so bad, little boy,” piped a sympa- 
thetic voice, and a curly head was thrust out 
of an open window near by. “ Mamma’s busy 
to-day, an’ Bridget’s cross ’cause I drank the 
pie-milk. How’d I know that it was pie-milk ? 
They shouldn’t put pie-milk in my own pitcher, 
anyhow. What’s your name ? ” 

" Billy.” 

“ Well, Billy, you’ll feel better to-morrow, ’cause 
it’s Thanksgiving Day ; an’ you’ll have turkey, 
an’ cranber’ sauce, an’ mince-pie* an’ pumpkin- 
pie, an’ more things than you could eat if you 
was as big as my grandpa.” 

“ No, I won’t,” said Billy sorrowfully. “ I 
won’t have a single mouthful of any thing ’thout 
I get some work to do.” 

“ Oh, yes, you will!” asserted Charlie encour- 
agingly. “ Everybody does on Thanksgiving 


36 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


Day. They have the good dinner so’s to 
make ’em ’member to be thankful.” 

“ I never had a Thanksgiving Day in all 
my life,” said Billy sullenly, “ or any thing 
else to be thankful for.” 

“You’re sure you didn’t?” Charlie’s blue 
eyes opened to their widest extent, with half- 
credulous amazement. “ I guess you’ve forgot, 
Billy.” 

“ No, I haven’t, either,” cried Billy indig- 
nantly. “ I guess if I’d ever had enough to 
eat once in my life, I’d ’member it ’s long ’s I 
lived.” 

He walked along as he said this ; and Charlie 
watched him, a tender pity shining in his 
eyes. 

He spread his chubby, dimpled hands out 
on the window-sill, and regarded them with 
serious intentness. 

“ I wouldn’t wonder if he told the troof,” 
he said, after a moment’s silent reflection. 


A THANKSGIVING PIE 


1 37 


“ His hands ain’t fat ’n’ round like mine, with 
little holes where the fingers stick in. Oh, dear, 
I do wish he could have a Thanksgiving dinner 
just once, to see how it would seem to him ! ” 

Speaking of the Thanksgiving dinner reminded 
Charlie that on his last visit to the kitchen, 
half an hour before, Bridget had just finished 
a little pie for his especial' benefit, and it 
surely must be baked by this time. 

Mamma was up-stairs getting ready for 
lunch, and Bridget was down cellar after more 
butter. The odorous kitchen was without a 
guardian ; and Charlie’s eyes at once discovered 
his own little pie (conspicuous for its lumpy 
surface), among the larger ones on the pantry- 
shelf. 

“ I ’spose Billy ’d feel real thankful if he 
had a whole pie to hisself,” mused Charlie, 
turning his Thanksgiving pie about, and view- 
ing its uneven top crust with complacent satis- 
faction. “It’s just chuck full of raisins,” he 


38 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


soliloquized, putting the tip of his appreciative 
little nose close to its tempting rim ; “ big 
fat fellows, too, an’ it’ll taste good to me. If 
I was a Billy-boy out doors, I’d like to have a 
Charlie-boy give me his Thanksgiving pie, 
’specially if I didn’t know how nice Thanks- 
giving pies are, and hadn’t ever had one. 
Bridget won’t bother to make me another if 
I give this one away, and the big ones ain’t 
so good ’s this is ; but Billy did look hungry. 
Yes,” decidedly, “I’ll give my pie to Billy.” 

With the pie tightly grasped in his chubby 
hands, Charlie started in search of Billy. He 
remembered the direction Billy had taken, and 
he started down the street calling “ Billy ” 
at the top of his shrill little voice. 

“ I wish I knew where I could find a good, 
trusty errand-boy,” said Mr. Harper, as he 
sat at lunch with his wife opposite. He had not 
thought that she could help him solve the ques- 
tion. He had simply spoken his thought aloud. 


A THANKSGIVING PIE 


139 


“ Would a small boy answer your purpose ? ” 
she asked. 

“ I don’t need a large one, and would not 
care to pay the wages of such an one,” he 
answered. “ I want a boy who will be spry, 
respectful, and trustworthy. I’ve had several 
applications for the place, but the boys do 
not suit me.” 

“ I wish I had known about it this morning,” 
said Mrs. Harper. “ A small boy came to the 
door inquiring for work. I have reproached 
myself many times since, that I did not give 
him something to eat, he looked so thin and 
hungry.” 

“ Where is my boy ? ” asked Mr. Harper : “ I 
must see him before I go.” 

Mrs. Harper summoned Bridget, and sent 
for Charlie. In a few moments Bridget returned, 
saying that Charlie could not be found. 

Then began an exciting search for the missing 
child. On becoming satisfied that he was not 


140 


THE YEAR'S BEST BAYS 


in the house or yard, Mr. Harper started for 
a policeman to assist in the search. At the 
door Mrs. Harper said, — 

“Those children may have seen him. There 
comes a little boy carrying another nearly as 
large as himself, and I do believe it is 
Charlie.” 

She rushed past her husband, out into the 
street ; and, sure enough, there was Charlie in 
Billy’s arms. 

“ He got so tired he couldn’t go any farther,” 
explained Billy. “ I thought you’d worry about 
him, so I toted him along part o’ the way ; but 
he’s pretty fat an’ heavy,” drawing his ragged 
sleeve across his face to wipe off the perspira- 
tion gathered there. 

Mr. Harper took Charlie. 

“ Don’t let Billy go till he’s had some 
Thanksgiving pie,” cried Charlie ; and when 
they had entered the house he told his little 
story. 


A THANKSGIVING PIE 141 

“ Billy said that he never had any thing to 
be thankful for. I ’membered the Golden Rule, 
mamma, and I thought I’d give him my own 
little Thanksgiving pie, with the lots of raisins 
in it ; but I couldn’t find him. I runned, and 
then I walked. There was lots of boys, but 
no Billies. By ’n’ by I got so hungry ’n’ tired 
that I had to eat the pie myself. I’d just ate 
the crust all around, so’s to save the best for 
the last, when a big boy snatched it from me ; 
an’ I screamed loud ’s ever I could. I don’t 
s’pose Billy would ’a’ found me if that boy 
hadn’t snatched my pie. Billy pitched right 
into him, an’ cuffed him good ; but he didn’t 
get the pie, ’cause the big boy opened his mouth 
real wide, an’ put it all in. You’d just ought 
to ’a’ seen his cheeks pod out ! ” 

“ I was afraid you had coaxed Charlie away,” 
said Mrs. Harper to Billy, thinking that had 
she kept the Golden Rule this little boy would 
not have gone from her door hungry. 


142 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


“ I guess he didn’t, mamma ! ” exclaimed 
Charlie indignantly. “ I went myself, and you 
wouldn’t have any little boy now if Billy hadn’t 
found me. I losted myself ; but he ’membered 
where I lived, an’ he brought me back quick, 
so’t you wouldn’t worry ’bout me. When I 
got tired, an’ my feet wouldn’t go, he carried 
me. Say, papa, can’t Billy stay and have some 
of our Thanksgiving dinner to-morrow ? Please, 
mamma, do let him.” 

“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Harper, kissing 
Charlie’s eager face. “ He shall eat Thanks- 
giving dinner with us to-morrow, and I will 
see that you each have a Thanksgiving pie 
of your own.” Then, turning to her husband, 
she said, — 

“This is the boy I was telling you about.” 

“ Where did you find Charlie ? ” asked Mr. 
Harper of Billy. 

“ On Pearl Street, sir, down by the river.” 

“And you came all this way with him just 
to see him safely home ? ” 


A THANKSGIVING PIE 


143 


“Yes, sir; he couldn’t ’a’ found it alone, an’ 
’twouldn’t ’a’ been right to have left the little 
fellow down there.” 

“See here, my boy,” said Mr. Harper with 
quick determination, “ do you know of any 
good, trusty boy, who would like to have a 
home here, and earn a dollar or two a week, 
beside, doing errands ? ” 

“ Yes, sir, I — oh, please, sir, I ain’t so 
very little, an’ I’ll grow as fast as ever I can,” 
exclaimed Billy, his small, thin face aglow with 
eager expectancy, while his dark eyes sparkled 
hopefully. 

“ Little, you ! no, indeed ! ” said Mr. Harper 
kindly. “You brought Charlie safely home, and 
he is much larger and heavier than any bundle 
you will ever be asked to carry for me. I am 
glad you will take the place ; I have been looking 
for just such a boy as you are.” 


WHERE IS POLLY 


STRANGER. 

“ Little lady, have you seen 
My wee sister Polly? 

Years ago I left her here, 

With her big rag dolly. 

You are something like her, dear, 
’Cept your hair is snarly ; 

Eyes like hers, bright, pansy blue, — 
I’m her brother Charley. 

Polly’s dress was home-made stuff, 
Warm and stout for climbing; 

We made mud-pies in the sand 
When the sun was shining. 

You’re a dainty little pet, 

Like your fair French dolly; 

But I want to find my own 
Little sister Polly.” 

144 


* 



Polly. Page 144 















































































WHERE IS POLL Y 


145 


LITTLE GIRL. 

“I don’t know a ’ittle dirl 
Wiz a brover Tarley; 

’Ems my bangs upon my head, 
An' my hair ain’t snarly. 

Wis ’at I could find her tho’, 

Wiz her big rag dolly, 

An’ her dress what never tears, — 
Fink she must be jolly. 

We has dot Fanksdivin’ pie, 

An’ in our big oven 
Is a turkey cookin’ to 
Make us good an’ lovin’. 

We’re dressed up our very best, 
Me an’ my new dolly, 

Tause my untle’s tomin’ home, — 
My big untie Tarley.” 




























OTHER DAYS 

Here are birthdays and other days, 

My little friend, for you. 

Now, which day claims your highest praise ? 

Come, tell me “ true as true ” 

Is one day better than the rest? 

Or are the year’s best days all best ? 




' 
















AN IMPROMPTU BIRTHDAY PARTY 


A TRUE STORY 

Little Cora Clark had been to a birthday 
party only the day before, — a “really, truly” 
party, and her first. 

On the wide door-step she sat and thought it 
over : all the pretty cakes with candies on them, 
the nuts and the ice-cream (oh, that was deli- 
cious !), and the flowers on the long table, and 
Mamie’s mamma, in a big white apron, to ask 
them if they “wouldn’t have something more,” 
until they couldn’t actually swallow another 
mouthful, and then to fill their pockets with the 
nuts and candies that were left. 

Such a delightful experience had never come 
into wee Cora’s life before ; and it is no wonder 
that her pink cheeks grew pinker, and her blue 

149 


150 THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 

eyes more darkly blue, as she thought it over. 
What would she give to have a birthday of her 
own ! She had never given much thought to 
birthdays before ; but now they rose in her esti- 
mation, and took precedence of all other days. 

Little Frisk came frisking around the corner, 
and barked and capered about in a most frantic 
attempt to attract her attention. Topsy, her 
small black kitten, came out of the sitting-room, 
rolling Cora’s rubber ball, with little taps from 
her soft velvety paws. Old Speckle came se- 
dately from behind the rose-bush, searching for 
worms under the last year’s leaves, all the while 
instructing her fluffy brood in a serious, ma- 
tronly way, and a croaky voice that hadn’t quite 
recovered from a fearful cold caught during the 
winter just past. 

They were all especial pets of Cora’s ; but she 
did not see them, so wholly absorbed was she in 
her own meditations. 

“Well,” she said at last, with a long-drawn 


AN IMPROMPTU PAR TV 1 5 1 

breath of relief, having arrived at satisfactory 
conclusions, “ why can’t I have a birthday 
party too, I’d like to know. All I’ve got to 
do is to go ’n’ invite them to come. Mamie 
came an’ ’vited me. Why, of course I’ll have 
a birthday party ; an’ I’ll have it to-morrow, 
too.” 

Cora never paused to consider that birthday 
parties were for birthdays, and that her own 
fifth birthday was several weeks in the future. 
She tied on her small bonnet ; and after glancing 
in the sewing-room, and seeing that mamma was 
very busy, she went softly out at the front gate, 
saying to herself, — 

“ I won’t ’sturb mamma one bit. She’s going 
to be so busy for a few days, I heard her say so. 
My ! won’t I have a good time to-morrow. I 
won’t ’vite many little girls, then there’ll be all 
the more candy and cake and ice-cream for us ; 
and I shall tell Flora and Addie and Jennie and 
Lulo that they must have birthdays right away 


152 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


next week ; and maybe, when we get around, we’ll 
begin all over again.” 

It was an exceedingly happy little girl that 
rang the bell at Mamie’s home, and Mamie’s 
own little self came to the door. 

“ I’ve come to ’vite you over to my birthday 
party to-morrow,” said Cora, with all the dignity 
the occasion demanded. 

“ Oh, goody ! won’t we have fun,” cried Mamie. 
“ I know that mamma will let me come, because 
you came to mine yesterday,” and the little girl 
skipped away to obtain mamma’s permission. 

Flora’s mamma came to the door ; and, when 
she saw the small caller, she began, — 

“ Does your mamma know ” — 

But Cora did not wait to hear the unpleasant 
question she felt certain would follow, so she said 
hastily, — 

“ I am going to have a birthday party to-mor- 
row, and I want Flora to come. I’ve ’vited six 
little girls, and I’m going to ’vite some more.” 


AN IMPROMPTU PARTY 


153 


Flora’s mamma looked perplexed. 

“Yes,” she said hesitatingly, “if you are to 
have a birthday party, of course Flora can come ; 
though she has hardly recovered from the one 
that Mamie had yesterday.” 

Cora did not wait a moment longer than was 
necessary. She was so fearful that Flora’s mam- 
ma would think of some disagreeable question 
to ask concerning the party, so she ran down the 
long walk and out at the gate in a hurry. 

Mrs. Clark thought that her little girl looked 
unusually flushed and tired that night when she 
put her to bed ; but she thought it was the after 
effects of her excitement of the day before, and 
she was thankful that it would be some time 
before any of the little girls in the neighborhood 
had another birthday. 

“ Mamma,” said Cora the next morning, “ I 
want to put on my white dress to-day.” 

“ Oh, no, dear,” answered mamma ; “ your 
gingham dress is better for home wear.” 


154 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


“ But I wore my white dress to Mamie’s party, 
and all the little girls had on white dresses,” 
persisted the child. 

“That was different. Little girls wear white 
to parties,” replied mamma, as she threaded up 
the sewing-machine. 

“ But I’m to have a birthday party to-day, and 
there’s a lot of little girls coming.” 

Cora’s information caused her mother to whirl 
around and face her little daughter in consternation. 

“What do you mean, Cora, child?” she ex- 
claimed. 

Cora began to cry. 

“ I’ve ’vited such a lot of little girls to come 
to my birthday party to-day, and they be all 
a-coming,” she sobbed. 

“Cora Clark, when did you invite them?” 

“Yesterday, when you was a-sewing,” confessed 
the little culprit. 

“ But you haven’t a birthday for weeks yet. 
O child, what am I to do ? ” 


AN IMPROMPTU PARTY 


155 


Mrs. Clark looked up at the clock. It was 
nearly ten, and no preparation for a party. 

“Come here, Cora,” she said, “and tell me 
just who you have invited.” 

She thought she would send word to the 
various mammas, that Cora’s invitations had 
been without her knowledge, and that it was 
now too late to get ready for the little guests ; 
but Cora could not remember. 

She knew that she had invited Mamie and 
Flora and Addie and Lulu, and some little 
girls she had met on the street, whose names she 
could not remember. 

And again Mrs. Clark looked about, helplessly 
exclaiming, — 

“ Dear me, what shall I do ? ” 

Then, snatching up her bonnet, she ran over 
to her nearest neighbor’s, to consult with her 
concerning the best way out of the annoying 
dilemma in which her little daughter had placed 
her. 


156 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


Then, oh, what a hurry and confusion there 
was, getting ready for the impromptu party! 
Mrs. Clark’s neighbor kindly consented to assist 
in the preparations for though wee Cora had 
been very naughty indeed to take matters into 
her own small hands without consulting mamma, 
those other little girls, the invited guests, were 
not at all to blame, and must not be disappointed 
through Cora’s fault. 

There was whipping of eggs, stirring of cakes, 
running of errands. The great stove was kept 
hot, and the oven kept filled to its utmost 
capacity with cakes, — little ones and large ones, 
and medium-sized ones ; and mamma’s cheeks 
were flushed, and everybody was tired, and little 
Cora contemplated affairs in the kitchen with 
grave, serious eyes. 

It had not once occurred to her that there was 
any labor or unpleasantness attending a birthday 
party ; and when her little guests began to arrive, 
her small face had a troubled shadow upon it. 


AN IMPROMPTU PARTY 


15 7 


Then, too, she learned that it is far more 
difficult to entertain than to be entertained. 
The little guests were hard to please : no two 
of them wanted to play the same game ; and one 
of them, I am sorry to relate, made very unkind 
remarks about the candies, in Cora’s hearing. 

“ O Mamie,” she sobbed, as the last one of 
her guests departed, and only this little friend 
and her kind mamma remained, to assist in 
tidying up, “ I didn’t know it was such hard 
work to have a birthday party ! Every thing was 
just splendid at your house.” 

‘‘It seemed so to you, Cora,” confided Mamie ; 
“ but really and truly I had lots of trouble. Dora 
Smith said my dear mamma was stingy not to 
make more than three kinds of cake for us, and 
Lois Larkum said that my pretty new dress was 
‘horrid.’ I don’t think it is so nice to have 
birthday parties, after all.” 

“And I s’pose I’ve got to be punished after 
you go home, for making all this trouble ’thout 


i 5 8 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


first asking mamma,” replied the sorrowful little 
girl, with a fresh outburst of grief. “ I don’t see 
how I came to do it. Truly, Mamie, I never 
thought there would be the leastest trouble to any 
one, and I thought we would have a splendidest 
time; and now mamma’s tired, and Julia West 
says she won’t ’vite me to her party, ’cause I 
couldn’t give her any more chocolate creams 
after they were all gone. Oh, dear ! ” 

When mamma drew the tired, sorrowful, 
repentant little girl into her arms, for the long, 
confidential twilight chat, she decided that the 
child had been sufficiently punished for her 
thoughtlessness, and that she had that day 
learned one of life’s important lessons, which 
she would scarcely forget ; namely, that even our 
enjoyments cost something. There is no free 
gift in life, and our anticipations are seldom fully 
realized. 


FLOY’S BIRTHDAY 


“ There, now, you just set right here while 
I take the work up to the mistress, an’ see if 
it’s all right. If it is, I’ll bring you the pay 
for it,” said Mary Murphy, as she placed a chair 
for the little boy on the white kitchen floor by 
the great stove. 

“An’ mind,” she added, pausing with her 
hand on the latch of the door, and looking back 
at the child, with her forefinger threateningly 
upraised, “don’t you stir from that chair while 
I’m gone. Your feet are all covered with mud, 
an’ I won’t have tracks on my clean floor. I 
can tell when I come back, whether you’ve 
been snoopin’ about or not ; an’ if you have, 
I’ll ’tend to your case.” 

She went out and shut the door with a bang, 

i 59 


160 THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 

as though she intended by this means to impress 
her words the more forcibly upon the boy’s mind. 

After she was gone, Harry Aimes drew a 
long breath, and glanced about the great spicy 
kitchen in a frightened manner, half expecting 
the promised “ tending to ” if he so much as 
lifted his eyes. 

It was a large kitchen, and the clock on the 
mantel ticked very loud. 

Just across the room, on the table, stood a 
large panful of brown doughnuts. How the 
child’s eyes sparkled when he caught sight of 
them ! He glanced down at his muddy feet, 
and then across the wide strip of white floor 
that lay between him and the coveted treasures. 

“ She’d never miss just one from that panful,” 
he said, in low tones ; then his face flushed 
hotly. 

“I forgot that God would miss it,” he said, 
resolutely turning his face away from the table, 
and looking out of the window. 


FLOY'S BIRTHDAY 


161 


At that moment he heard steps in the hall ; 
then the door was pushed open, and a round, 
childish face looked into the room. 

“ Mary ! ” called out the little voice. “ I say, 
Mary ! Where are you ? I’ve come for the 
doughnut you promised me.” 

The little girl advanced into the room ; and, 
when her eyes discovered Harry, she exclaimed, — 
“Whose little boy are you, and what are you 
doing here, all alone ? ” 

“ I am Mrs. Aimes’s little boy. My name is 
Harry, and I am waiting for your Mary to 
bring the pay for the sewing my mamma has 
been doing for yours,” explained Harry. 

“Your mamma has always come herself before, 
and I did not know that she had a little boy.” 

“ She worries about me when I am out in 
the street, and she don’t like to have me come 
so far,” replied Harry ; “ but she had a headache 
to-day, and couldn’t come.” 

Little Floy Wayland scanned his face with 


1 62 THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 

serious blue eyes. At length, remembering why 
she had come down to the kitchen, she asked, — 
“ Do you like doughnuts ? ” 

“ I guess I do,” exclaimed Harry, with an 
expectant look on his face. 

“ Does your girl Mary make them for you ? ” 
“ We haven’t any girl. Mamma does our 
work.” 

“Well, does she make nice brown doughnuts 
like these?” 

“No,” said Harry, dropping his head, and 
moving his feet uneasily on the round of the 
chair in which he was sitting. “ No, we’re too 
poor for doughnuts.” Then, more confidently, 
“ We have lots of bread, though, and sometimes 
there’s molasses to sop it in.” 

“ Too poor to have doughnuts ? Well, you 
shall have some of mine ; can’t he, Mary ? ” 
asked Floy, as Mary entered the room. 

“Yes,” said Mary, seeing that he had not 
been tracking across her clean kitchen floor. 


FLOY'S BIRTHDAY 


163 

“ Here is one for yourself, and one to carry 
home to your mother.” 

Little Floy did not forget the little boy who 
was too poor to have doughnuts, — this was a 
serious deprivation, she thought, — and whenever 
she had any thing especially good to eat, she 
always wished she could share it with him. 

Floy’s birthday came in June, just when the 
roses were out, and the world looked its prettiest. 
Her mamma had promised her that she should 
have a beautiful birthday cake ; and the moment 
that Floy saw the cake, she thought of Harry. 

“Is the beautiful big cake to eat, mamma, or 
just to make the table look nice?” Floy asked. 

“ It is to eat, of course,” replied her mamma. 

“ Dear mamma, this is my birthday, and I 
do wish you would let me invite just one to 
help me eat my cake,” pleaded the little one. 

“ Ask any child you like, my dear,” said her 
mamma. “Who is it to be, your little cousin 
Bessie ? ” 


1 64 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


“ No, mamma. It is little Harry Aimes, whose 
mamma is too poor to have doughnuts. I shall 
give him the very biggest piece of my pretty 
cake. It will taste so good to him.” 

“Very well, dear, you may go with papa after 
dinner, and drive around for him. He will enjoy 
the ride as well as the cake,” said mamma. 

Harry was delighted at the prospect of a ride 
and a piece of birthday cake afterward ; and 
Mr. Wayland drove the children far into the 
green pleasant country before he took them 
home. 

There were roses on their cheeks when they 
came riding home, late in the afternoon, and 
they had good appetites for the supper that was 
waiting for their return. 

As soon as they had bathed their flushed, 
dusty faces, and smoothed their tumbled hair, 
they were conducted to the dining-room ; and, at 
Floy’s request, Harry was seated beside herself, 
so that she could see he was not neglected, 


FLOY'S BIRTHDAY 


65 


but had all he could eat, and an especially large 
piece of her birthday cake. 

When they were leaving the dining-room, Floy 
drew her mamma’s head down, and, standing on 
her tip-toes, whispered something in her ear. 

“Yes, dear, I will see to it,” her mamma re- 
plied ; and the result of Floy’s request was a large 
basket of cake, and other portions of her birthday 
feast, sent home with little Harry for his mamma. 

After the happy day was over, grandpa Way- 
land drew little Floy up onto his knee, and told 
her that he was sure God was pleased with the 
manner in which she had spent her birthday, and 
that he hoped this new year of her life would be 
as full of thoughtfulness for those less fortunate 
ones, as this her birthday had been. 

He said he was sure her dreams would be 
happy ones, for happy dreams are sent to those 
who. are truly good. 

Bending over her, to see why his pet sat so 
quietly, and made no reply, he discovered that 


1 66 THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 

the long lashes had settled down and down until 
they rested on her cheek ; and the little one, tired 
out with happiness and excitement, had fallen 
asleep, with a smile on her lips, that told plainer 
than words of the beautiful dreams she was 
dreaming. 


A NOBLE DEED AND ITS REWARD 

“ I wonder if the whole world is as full of 
trouble as our part of it seems to be, mother ? 
It really seemed as though we couldn’t bear 
another particle of trouble when father lost the 
beautiful home that had been ours for years, and 
where Judge Eldred now lives, enjoying the 
flowers and the fruit that we planted. But that 
was only the beginning of what was to come after- 
ward. When father fixed up this little cottage, 
and brought us here, it seemed so bright and cosey 
— such a dear little home in a nest of flowers — 
that we didn’t miss the grand home so very 
much. We had just got really reconciled to the 
change, when father was taken sick, and during 
his long illness we were obliged to mortgage 
even the little home ; and now, that he is dead, we 


167 


68 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


must lose it too, and there is no place for us to go 
to in all the world.” 

The brave boy, who had been such a tower of 
strength to his feeble mother, who had comforted 
her, and planned with her, and worked for her 
with such unfailing cheerfulness, broke down as 
he enumerated their misfortunes, and great sobs 
shook his slender form, as he laid his brown head 
in his mother’s lap. 

“Only to think, mother, the judge who has so 
much must take this pretty home too,” he cried 
out indignantly. “ I don’t believe that God cares 
for us any more, or he would help’ us now.” 

“ Fred ! ” 

There was a surprised, reproachful tone to the 
mother’s voice, seldom used in addressing her 
boy. 

“ Well, mother, perhaps God really does care ; 
but I can’t understand why he should let us 
suffer so many losses. I went to Judge Eldred’s 
to-day, and begged so earnestly that he would let 


A NOBLE DEED 


169 


us stay here. I told him that father had died 
here, and that the little home was very dear to 
my sick mother. I promised him that I would 
pay him every cent of the rent, if he would only 
give me a little time ; and he actually laughed in 
my face.” 

A hot, crimson flush spead across the boy’s 
white brow, and a flash of anger deepened in his 
brown eyes. 

“Yes, mother, he laughed, — such a scornful, 
contemptuous laugh, — and leaned back in his 
great chair, and thrust his thumbs in his breast 
pockets, and hemmed and hawed, and eyed me 
sharply through his glasses, as though measuring 
my height ; then he said sarcastically, — 

“ * Would you like to speculate with some of 
your spare money, after supporting the family, 
and paying rent ? ’ 

“ l didn’t dare answer him, mother : I was so 
angry, I know I should have said some thing 
dreadfully disrespectful, if I had. I just snatched 


170 THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 

up my hat, and ran out of the room. Oh, I’ll be 
a man some day, and I shall never forget Judge 
Eldred’s treatment of me ! The time may come 
when he will ask a favor of me, and then ” — 

The mother’s slender hand passed softly, caress- 
ingly over her boy’s hot, indignant face. Her lips 
moved ; but she was not speaking to him, though 
her thoughts were all for him. Her gentle spirit 
was interceding for him ; and he seemed to feel 
the better influence, for he continued in milder 
tones, — 

“When I reached the hall, Judge Eldred’s little 
Elsie was standing there, with two big tears in 
her round, baby eyes. She had heard our con- 
versation, and partly understood it. Coming 
close to me, she slipped a soft little hand into 
mine, and whispered, — 

“ ‘ Essie loves you. Essie is so sorry ! Naughty 
papa ! Essie’ll give you her money.’ 

“O mother! how can a man like Judge 
Eldred have such a sweet little girl as Elsie ? ” 


A NOBLE DEED 


171 

“ It may be that God will reach his heart 
through her,” said his mother thoughtfully. 

“I believe it is the only way possible,” 
exclaimed Fred vehemently. “ Nothing but an 
angel could ever reach his cruel heart. He 
might have let us stay ; or, if he must have 
denied us that privilege, he might have done it 
in a more gentlemanly manner. He is one of 
those men who seem to forget that they were ever 
boys, with feelings that could be hurt. Now 
that I have a place in Mr. Barlow’s store, with 
tolerable good wages, and the promise of better 
by and by if I prove faithful, I could pay 
something on the rent, if he would only let us 
stay. O mother, I would work so hard to keep 
you in the home where dear father left you ! ” 

“ My dear boy, it would be selfish and very 
wrong for me to remain here, if the doing so 
placed heavier burdens on your young shoulders. 
But I had hoped, perhaps, the judge — Well, 
never mind ; we will not talk of that, dear. The 


172 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


darkest page in my future is not the giving up 
the little home, Fred.” 

“ What is it then, mother ? ” 

“ It is the giving up all hopes of your education. 
Your father and I had thought to send you to 
college soon.” 

Fred did not answer; but a wistful longing 
look crept into his eyes, as the dusky shadows 
of twilight settled about mother and son, sitting 
together on the little ivy-covered porch. Fred, 
too, had longed for the education that must be 
throught of no longer, since he had other graver 
duties to perform. 

Long they sat there in silence ; each thinking 
of the dreaded morrow, when — so a rich and 
powerful man had decreed — they must leave 
the home made dear to them in many ways. 

Mrs. Howard was just recovering from an 
illness, the result of fatigue and mental suffering 
at the time of her husband’s death ; and she was 
scarcely in the condition to meet bravely and 


A NOBLE DEED 


173 


courageously the new trouble that awaited 
her. 

Presently, dropping a loving kiss on Fred's 
brow, she said, — 

“ Let us leave the future in God’s hands, my 
son, feeling sure that he knows what is for our 
best. And now, as it is getting late, and there 
will be so many things to attend to on the 
morrow, we had better retire and get all the rest 
we can.” 

After kissing his mother good-night, Fred went 
up-stairs to his room. Standing in the door, he 
glanced within admiringly. The moonlight 
shone in through the small south window. The 
muslin curtains were caught back from the 
windows, and tied with scarlet ribbons. It was 
not an elegant room, as his room at the great 
house had been : but it was his own, with all of 
his treasured belongings in it ; and a great throb 
of pain swelled in his heart, when he remembered 
that to-morrow he must leave it forever. 


74 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


Instead of going directly to bed, he threw 
himself on a lounge that stood across one corner 
of the room, and watched the moonlight with 
tearful eyes. 

He did not know how long he had lain there 
(for he had fallen asleep), when he was aroused 
by the cry of “ fire ; ” and, springing to his feet, 
he rushed down the stairs, out into the sultry 
night. 

A lurid gleam shot into the summer sky, in 
the direction of Judge Eldred’s home. A few 
moments later, and the boy was in the midst 
of an excited crowd. The fire had made such 
rapid progress that there was now no hope of 
saving the house. 

The servants were huddled together in a 
frightened group; and some one had just dragged 
the judge out of a side door, nearly suffocated, 
terribly bruised, and with a broken leg, — the 
result of a fall down a long flight of stairs, in his 
haste to quit his burning home. 


A NOBLE DEED 


175 


At that moment, from an upper window, which 
stood open, a little golden head was thrust ; two 
dimpled baby hands were reached entreatingly 
toward the sea of uplifted faces ; and above the 
crackling of flames, and falling timbers, rang 
out an eager little voice, calling, — 

“ Papa, take Essie ! ” 

The judge sprang forward, unmindful of his 
injuries, and fell back with a moan of despair. 

Below that window was a sheet of lurid flame, 
over which no ladder could be placed ; and to 
reach the spot in time to save the child, by one 
unacquainted with the interior of the house, was 
a hopeless task. 

The servants would not return, the master 
could not, and every moment the seething, roar- 
ing flames crept nearer and nearer that little 
golden head. 

In vain the master cried out for some one to 
save his darling. 

Suddenly, from out the crowd, leaped a 


176 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


slender, boyish form. Fred Howard had only 
that instant discovered the child. 

Judge Eldred beheld the movement, and knew 
the boy. Alas ! he could save her if he would ; 
but would he ? A great fear smote the father’s 
heart when he remembered the cruel words he 
had that day spoken to this same boy. 

Every nook and corner of the great house 
was familiar to Fred. One quick glance upward 
at the terrified child, and his resolution was 
taken. Springing around the corner of the 
house, he entered at a side door that the flames 
had not yet reached. 

One deafening shout went up from the lips 
of the people ; then a solemn silence fell on the 
waiting, breathless crowd. 

The judge leaned forward, forgetting his pain 
in his intense anxiety, and watched the small 
white-robed form at the window. Presently he 
beheld the boy’s form darkly outlined beside his 
darling’s. He saw Fred catch her up in his arms, 


A NOBLE DEED 


77 


saw Elsie clasp her chubby hands around his 
neck; and then the proud, stern judge was 
praying, — praying to the God he had spurned all 
his life, — casting aside the mantle of self-suffi- 
ciency, and bowing in repentant contrition and 
earnest supplication before the Power that is 
“ mighty to save,” in that moment of awful 
suspense. 

After reaching Elsie, Fred started to return, 
the way he came, but the flames had already cut 
off retreat in that direction ; and, turning, he sped 
up another flight of stairs, opened a little window, 
and leaped out on the roof of the west wing. 

Many a time in the old days had he reached the 
ground in this way. But now he was exhausted ; 
his hands were blistered by falling sparks, and 
smarting terribly ; his eyes, blinded with smoke ; 
and a heavy weight was clinging to his 
neck. 

Slowly and carefully he climbed over the roof 
(after bidding Elsie close her eyes, and trust him 


i;8 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


to take her safely to papa), until he reached the 
covering of a porch. 

At this point a hundred hands were lifted 
through clouds of smoke to him. 

He handed down the sobbing child ; and then 
the weak hands relaxed their grasp, the dizzy 
brain reeled, the feet grew uncertain, a misstep, 
a sudden crash, and they drew the brav^e, uncon- 
scious boy away from the burning building, not a 
moment too soon, for Judge Eldred’s beautiful 
home lay there, a lurid, smoking wreck before 
them. 

The next morning, while Fred lay in bed, weak 
and pale, all his bright brown hair singed and 
burned away, and his mother bathing the poor, 
blistered hands with Pond’s Extract, dropping 
tears and kisses on them, there came a rap at 
the door. 

On opening it, a gentleman entered, saying 
that Judge Eldred had requested him to call and 
make inquiries concerning Fred’s injuries. After 


A NOBLE DEED 


1 79 


completing his errand he arose to go, handing 
Mrs. Howard a paper, at the same time laying a 
package on Fred’s pillow. 

When he was gone, she opened the letter, and 
read in the judge’s trembling hand, — 

Dear Madam, — The noble conduct of your son last 
night, in risking his life to save that which was dearer than 
any thing on earth to me, was such that I can find no words 
with which to express my feelings. The debt of gratitude I 
owe him can never be cancelled ; but I humbly beg the 
privilege of bearing the expense of his education, which 
favor I sincerely hope and trust you will grant. 

Respectfully yours, 

ISAAC ELDRED. 

On opening the package, she found within the 
mortgage that had cost them so many heartaches. 

Turning his head aside to conceal the falling 
tears, Fred murmured, — 

“ God does care, mother ; and his ways are the 


best, after all.” 


SIX LITTLE GIRLS 


THEIR DREADFUL ADVENTURE 

Over twenty-five years ago, in a small Indiana 
village situated on the banks of a pleasant 
stream, stood an old red-brick schoolhouse. 
The village is still there. It has not yet grown 
into city ways, and probably never will. The 
river, too, is there, and is still the same pleas- 
ant, high-banked stream it was twenty-five years 
ago. But the dear old red-brick schoolhouse 
has given place to a more pretentious modern 
structure ; and the little boys and girls who 
“ sported on the schoolhouse play-ground ” then 
are men and women now, with little boys and 
girls of their own. 

Children have grand events in their lives 
as well as older people. Wonderfully exciting 


SIX LITTLE GIRLS 


81 


incidents occur to them, narrow escapes and 
startling adventures, which they remember all 
their after lives. 

It is one of these narrow escapes from a 
terrible calamity, one of these startling adven- 
tures of child-life, that I am about to relate 
to the little boys and girls of to-day ; and the 
story is no “make-believe.” It is true, — ter- 
ribly true it seemed to six little girls who 
attended school at the old red-brick so long 
ago. 

Just back of the schoolhouse was the play- 
ground ; and just back of the playground, with 
only a high board fence between, was the 
railroad track, where trains thundered past at 
all hours of the day. 

The fence between was high. The most 
agile boy in the playground could not climb 
to its top ; but they could and did beat down 
the boards with miniature battering-rams, con- 
structed for this purpose. 


1 82 THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 

These openings in the fence would some- 
times escape the notice of the teacher for 
days, even weeks at a time ; and the children 
would crowd their round, bright faces into 
them to watch the trains go past. 

At first they remained within the enclosure, 
only glancing timidly through at the forbidden 
ground beyond ; but they finally grew bolder, 
and ventured into the tall grass which grew 
on either side of the track. 

The boys converted the newly acquired 
territory into a ball-ground, while the girls 
began to search for suitable locations for play- 
houses. 

There were six little girls who belonged to 
one play-family, representatives of six real 
families in the village, — 

Minnie Wells, the minister’s little daughter, 
a little tot of six ; Dot Williams, the village 
merchant’s daughter ; Nellie Dodd, the grocer’s ; 
Fay Ferris represented the aristocracy, in 


SIX LITTLE . GIRLS 


83 


French merino and high-heeled boots ; while 
Sallie McConald came from the lower ranks. 

These little girls were all about seven years 
of age ; while the play-mother of this interest- 
ing family was older, and was also the cause 
of the terror and humiliation which came to 
them one autumn day. 

It was during the noon intermission that 
Mary, the mother, joined her family, her eyes 
aglow with excitement, exclaiming, — 

“ Oh, my, girls! I guess I’ve found a house 
for us now, — areally, truly house! And we 
can have a bedroom and a kitchen and a 
parlor, and every thing we want ; and we won’t 
let a single boy into it, — not a single boy ! ” 

“ Oh, where is it ? ” chorused the other five 
voices excitedly. 

“You just follow me, and see what I’ve found 
for us,” Mary answered, with becoming dignity 
and self-importance, as she led the way, followed 
by her noisy, interested family. 


184 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


And, sure enough, there it stood, a “ really, truly 
house,” as Mary had said, with roof and floor 
and great slide doors on either side, — just the 
loveliest play-house in the world, the children 
thought ; and speedy preparations were made 
to move in at once and take possession. 

“But there ain’t any door-steps to it, and 
how’ll we ever get in?” asked Fay dolefully, 
glancing up at the great open door, so far 
above. 

“ We’ll make us some steps,” replied Mary, 
who was equal to almost any emergency. 

A large box lay near, and the six little girls 
set to work to roll it to the side of the new 
house, regardless of white aprons and clean 
hands ; and then with shrieks of delight they 
clambered in, and explored the interior. 

“ The family that moved out wasn’t the leastest 
bit neat,” said Nellie, viewing the floor in 
dismay. 

“ We’ll have a thorough house-cleaning,” said 


SIX LITTLE GIRLS 


185 


Mary energetically. “ Now, children,” she 
added, “ I want you all to go to the old play- 
house, and move the furniture and dishes to 
our new house , just as quick as ever you can. 
I should be mortified to death if Mrs. Judge 
Baxter or the minister’s wife should call, and 
find us in such a mess.” 

And then, oh how hard they did work, those 
six little girls ! Pieces of carpets, bits of broken 
crockery, odds and ends of almost every thing, 
which the mothers at home had contributed 
to the play-house at different times, were brought 
by armfuls to the new house; and great drops 
of perspiration stood out under the edge of 
brown, yellow, and sandy hair, — the result of 
their energetic enthusiasm. 

Water was brought from the depot in an old 
battered tin pail, and the floor was scrubbed with 
the stub of a broom that one of the children had 
brought from home when its time of service there 
was over. The cleaning process went on until, 


1 86 THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 

as Sallie remarked, “The floor was plenty clean 
enough to eat off from.” 

“And, oh, my! just the cutest little shelf for 
our dishes !” said Dot, as she placed them care- 
fully in a row on a beam that extended across the 
end of the house. 

“ It’s the nicest house I ever did see, and 
plenty big enough for a real house,” exclaimed 
Sallie, drawing in a long, delighted breath. 

By this time the household goods had all been 
conveyed to the new house, and lay in piles of 
confusion on the floor. 

“ Now, do work spry, children ! ” said the busy 
mother, bustling about excitedly. “ We must get 
things straightened before the school-bell rings. 

“There it goes,” she cried in dismay. “Oh, 
dear me suz ! It’s just as I expected. I know 
that Mr. Donald hasn’t given us half an hour’s 
nooning to-day.” 

“The mean old thing,” added Nellie indig- 
nantly. 


SIX LITTLE GLRLS 


187 

At that instant, without a moment’s warning, 
the two great doors on either side of the house 
slid to with a bang, that brought six wildly pal- 
pitating hearts into six throbbing little throats, as 
the terror-stricken children stood in the awful 
darkness of their prison-house. 

They were too astonished and frightened to 
speak or move for a moment ; and during that 
short space of silence, they heard a great, gruff 
voice, just outside, say, in very much the terrify- 
ing manner used by the giant, when poor little 
Jack heard his tremendous voice repeating, — 
“ Fe, fi, fo, fum ” at the top of the bean-stalk. 
The gruff voice said, — 

“ Six little girls, num, num ; real tender ones, 
too. I can get a good, big price for ’em out 
West, where little girls are scarce. I’ll couple 
this freight-car right on to the engine, and take 
’em off afore they’re missed.” 

Then the “ play-house ” began to move along 
the track, slowly at first, but gaining rapidity 


1 88 THE YEAR'S BEST DA VS 

with every revolution of the wheels ; and a wail 
of anguish, that was simply terrific, went up from 
the entire family within. 

Dot and Nellie danced right up and down, and 
screamed at the top of their shrill, little voices, 
tossing their chubby hands about in a most 
frantic manner. 

Sallie and Fay also raised their voices in a 

0 

dismal wail of anguish. 

Little Minnie dropped on her knees, and began 
to repeat, “ Now, I lay me down to sleep/’ get- 
ting the words sadly mixed with, “ Oh, I want my 
mamma ! ” 

Mary, in loud, vehement tones, threatened their 
captor with every conceivable manner of ven- 
geance if he did not release them at once ; but 
her terrible threats were drowned by the united 
voices of her sobbing children. 

“ Oh, what shall we do ? What shall we ever 
do ? ” cried Nellie, in despair. 

“ I s’pose he’s going to sell us to people who 


SIX LITTLE GIRLS 


89 


eat up fat little girls ; and what will our mammas 
do then ? ” sobbed Dot, who was by far the 
plumpest of the six. 

Then followed another burst of uncontrollable 
grief and lamentation, louder and longer than the 
first, in the midst of which the giant’s heart must 
have relented ; for one of the great doors slid sud- 
denly open, letting in a flood of sunlight, letting- 
out six sorrowful little girls with tumbled clothes 
and tear-stained faces. 

They did not wait to find the steps, but jumped 
out in such reckless haste that they fell upon each 
other in a bewildering heap of bright-colored 
dresses, from which protruded six pairs of small 
feet struggling to extricate their owners from 
the heaving, squirming mass. 

This was finally accomplished ; and just as the 
second reading-class was taking its place on the 
recitation-seat, six forlorn little objects filed into 
the schoolroom. 

But their troubles were not at an end. To be 


190 THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 

sure, they had lost all of their household goods ; 
had bruised themselves dreadfully in their fall 
from the car ; had soiled and torn their dresses, so 
that an explicit explanation must be rendered at 
home. But the most terrible part was yet to come. 
They fully realized this when Miss Birch bade 
them stand in a line, and await Mr. Donald’s 
verdict. Trembling with apprehensive forebod- 
ings they stood there, while the copious tears 
flowed afresh. 

At length they heard his step in the hall, the 
step that caused little chills of fear to creep over 
them at any time, but which seemed like a knell 
of doom as they tremblingly awaited his coming. 

He entered the room, heard their piteous story 
of captivity, and a narrow escape from a horrible 
death, colored by Mary’s vivid imagination ; then 
their punishment began. 

Mary, being the eldest, was placed foremost, 
and the rest in a line behind her. 

“ Forward, march ! ” said the principal, in a 


SIX LITTLE GIRLS 


I 9 I 

voice of stern command ; and the melancholy line 
advanced. 

Mr. Donald stood at the door leading into the 
hall ; and, as they passed him, he administered a 
stinging blow on the six left ears turned toward 
him. 

He then marched solemnly in advance, conduct- 
ing them up-stairs into the august presence of the 
young ladies and gentlemen of the school, after 
which he again took his station at the door, and 
administered a blow of equal severity on the six 
right ears. 

The little, culprits were then permitted to take 
their seats, with hot cheeks, and still hotter ears, 
as reminders of their offence. 

For days afterward, they took no interest in 
play-houses or games, but would go away by 
themselves, and talk over their dreadful adven- 
ture, and surmise and wonder what terrible 
things would have happened to them if their 
captor had not finally relented and set them free. 


MAMMA’S BREAD-WINNERS 


Across the green meadows, beyond the green glen, 
Come two little women and two little men ; 

The youngest is five, and the oldest is ten. 

Eyes brim-full of mischief has each little man, 

Such merry round faces all coated with tan, 

And brave hearts whose motto is always, “ I can.” 

The bluest of blue in the bright summer skies 
Is never so blue as the four laughing eyes 
Of those little women, so loving and wise. 

Across the green meadows, where cool breezes blow, 
In a place that only these little ones know, 

The largest and sweetest of blackberries grow. 

With pails, when the morning smiles rosy and red, 
Come Annie and Fannie and Tommy and 'Fed ; 

For mamma is ill, and dear papa is dead. 


192 



Mamina’s Bread Winners. Page 192 







M A MM A 'S BREA D- WINNERS 


193 


Beside the great forest a white village lies, 
Close-cuddled and cosey, beneath the blue skies ; 

And all the dear people love blackberry pies. 

Their pails are soon emptied of berries, and then 
Are filled with brown bundles, and two little men 
Have “ chinks ” in their pockets when crossing the 
glen. 

When the moon sails aloft over meadow and glen, 

And mamma has kissed her dear “ bread-winners,” 
then 

Sleep blesses these brave little women and men. 


THE QUEEN’S GIFT 


Where English daisies blossom, 

And English robins sing; 

When all the land was fragrant 
Beneath the feet of spring, — 

Two little sisters wandered 
Together, hand in hand, 

Along the dusty highway, 

Their bare feet soiled and tanned. 

’Twas not a childish sorrow 
That filled their eyes with tears : 

Their little hearts were burdened 
With grief beyond their years. 

The bright-eyed daisies blossomed 
In valley and in glen; 

The robins sang their sweetest ; 
Spring smiled, — but not for them. 


194 


THE QUEEN'S GIFT 


195 


Beneath the trees of Whitehall, 
Within its shadow brown, 

From out the royal palace 

The Queen came walking down. 

She saw the children standing 
Together, side by side; 

And, gazing down with pity, 

She asked them why they cried. 

“ Dear lady,” said the eldest, 

“ My little sister Bess 

And I have come together 
A hundred miles, I guess. 

“ Sometimes the roads were dusty, 
And sometimes they were green; 

We’re very tired and hungry, — 

We want to see the Queen. 

“ For mother’s sick, dear lady ; 

She cries ’most all the day. 

We hear her telling Jesus, 

When she thinks we’re at play. 


196 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


“ She tells him all about it, — 

How, when King James was king, 

We were so rich and happy, 

And had ’most every thing. 

“ We had our own dear father 
At home beside the Thames ; 

But father went to battle 
Because he loved King James. 

“ And then things were so different : 
I cannot tell you how. 

We haven’t any father 
Nor any nice things now. 

“ Last night our mother told us 
They’d take our home away, 

And leave us without any, 

Because she couldn’t pay. 

“So then we came together, 

Right through the meadow green. 

We prayed for God to help us, 

And take us to the Queen. 


THE QUEEN'S GIFT 


19; 


“ Because mamma once told us, 
That, many years ago 

The Queen was James’s little girl. 
And, lady, if ’twas so, 

“ I know she’ll let us keep it, — 
Our home beside the Thames ; 

For we have come to ask her, 
And father loved King James. 

“ And if we had to leave it, 

I’m sure mamma would die, 

For there’s no place to go to, — 
No place but in the sky.” 

Her simple story finished, 

She gazed up in surprise 

To see the lovely lady 

With tear-drops in her eyes. 

And when the English robins 
Had sought each downy nest ; 

And when the bright-eyed daisies, 
Dew-damp, had gone to rest, — 


198 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


A carriage such as never 
Had passed that way before 

Set down two little maidens 
Beside the widow’s door. 

They brought the weeping mother 
A package from the Queen ; 

Her royal seal was on it, 

And, folded in between, 

<. 

A slip of paper saying, 

“ The daughter of King James 

Gives to these little children 
Their home beside the Thames.” 


DRIFTED OUT TO SEA 


Two little ones, grown tired of play, 
Roamed by the sea one summer day, 
Watching the great waves come and go ; 
Prattling, as children will, you know, 

Of dolls and marbles, kites and strings, 
Sometimes hinting at graver things. 

At last they spied within their reach 
An old boat cast upon the beach. 
Helter-skelter, with merry din, 

Over its side they clambered in, — 

Ben, with his tangled, nut-brown hair ; 
Bess, with her sweet face flushed and fair. 

Rolling in from the briny deep, 

Nearer, nearer, the great waves creep ; 
Higher, higher, upon the sands ; 


199 


200 THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 

Reaching out with their giant hands, 
Grasping the boat in boisterous glee, 
Tossing it up and out to sea. 

Then softly whispered Ben, “ O Bess, 

We’re driftin’ out to sea, I guess. 

We’ll never see our mamma more, 

Or play upon the sandy shore.” 

“ We’re only goin’,” said little Bess, 

To meet our dear papa, I guess. 

“ He went in his big ship away, 

And said that he’d come back some day. 
’Twas such a long, long time ago, 

He must be coming back, and so 
We’re going out to meet him now ; 

And papa ’ll find us, anyhow.” 

The sun went down ’mid clouds of gold, 
Night came with footsteps damp and cold, 
Day dawned, the hours crept slowly by ; 
And now, across the sunny sky, 


DRIFTED OUT TO SEA 


201 


A black cloud stretches far away, 

And shuts the golden gates of day. 

The home-bound vessel “ Seabird” lies 
In ready trim ’twixt sea and skies. 

Her captain paces restless now, 

A troubled look upon his brow; 

While all his nerves with terror thrill, 
The shadow of some coming ill. 

The mate comes up to where he stands, 
And grasps his arm with eager hands. 
“A boat has just swept past,” said he, 

“ Bearing two children out to sea ; 

’Tis dangerous now to put about, 

But they cannot be saved without.” 

“ Naught but their safety will suffice ; 
They must be saved j the captain cries. 
“ By every thought that’s just and right, 
By lips I hoped to kiss to-night, 

I’ll peril vessel, life, and men, 

And God will not forsake me then.” 


202 


THE YEAR'S BEST DAYS 


With anxious faces, one and all, 

Each man responded to the call; 

And when at last through driving storm, 
They lifted up each little form, 

The captain started with a groan, 

“ My God,” he cried, “ they are my own ! ” 


T EE AND * * DOLLAR * * 
L‘ SHEPARD’S U - JUVENILES 

Comprising the following New Boohs and New Editions in attractive 
English doth binding and illustrated Any volume sold 
separately $ 1.00 per volume 


DARING-DEEDS SERIES 6 vols. Illustrated 
Daring Deeds of the Old Heroes of the Revolution 
The Old Bell of Independence and Other Stories of the Revolution 
The Father of his Country A Young-Folk’s Life of Washington 
The Friend of Washington A Young-Folks’ Life of Lafayette 
The Great Peace-Maker A Young-Folks’ Life of Penn 
Poor Richard’s Story A Young-Folks' Life of Franklin 

THE LIVE BOYS’ SERIES 6 vols Illustrated 
Live Boys in Texas Young Trail Hunters 

Live Boys in the Black Hills Crossing the Quicksands 
Paul and Persis Young Silver Seekers 

NATURAL HISTORY SERIES By Mrs. R. Lee Illus- 
trated by Harrison Weir 5 vols. 

Anecdotes of Animals The African Crusoes 

Anecdotes of Birds Reptiles and The Australian Crusoes 
Fishes The Australian Wanderers 

THE WILD SCENES LIBRARY 5 vols. Illustrated 

Wild Scenes of a Hunter’s Life Pioneer Mothers of the West 
Noble Deeds of American Gulliver’s Travels 
Women /Esop’s Fables 

OLD ROUGH AND READY SERIES 6 vols. Illustrated 
Old Rough and Ready Young Folks’ Life of General Zachary Taylor 
Old Hickory Young Folks’ Life of General Andrew Jackson 
The Little Corporal Young Folks’ Life of Napoleon Bonaparte 
The Swamp Fox Young Folks’ Life of General Francis Marion 
The Mill-Boy of the Slashes Young Folks' Life of Henry Clay 
The Great Expounder Young Folks Life ol Daniel Webster 

GOOD AND GREAT SERIES 6 vols Illustrated 
Good arid Great Men their Brave Deeds and Works 
Women of Worth whom the World Loves to Honor 
A Quaker among the Indians in Peace and in War 
The Whales We Caught and How We Did It 
House on Wheels or The Stolen Child 
Inn of the Guardian Angel or The Grateful General 


Sold by all booksellers and sent by mail postpaid on receipt of price 

LEE AND SHEPARD Publishers Boston 


T EE AND * * TTOLLAR * * 
L * SHEPARD’S U * JUVENILES 

Comprising the following New Boohs and New Editions in attractive 
English cloth binding and illustrated Any volume sold 
separately $1.00 per volume 


THE CASTAWAY STORIES 6 vols 

Adrift in the Ice Fields The Arctic Crusoe 

Cast Away in the Cold The Prairie Crusoe 

Willis the Pilot The Young Crusoe 

FAMOUS BOY SERIES 4 vols. Illustrated 
The Patriot Boy A popular life of George Washington 
The Bobbin Boy The Early Life of Gen. N. P. Banks 
The Border Boy A popular life of Daniel Boone 
The Printer Boy or How Ben Franklin made his Mark 

FRONTIER CAMP SERIES 4 vols Illustrated 
The Cabin on the Prairie By Dr. C. H. Pearson 
Planting the Wilderness By James D McCabe Jun 
The Young Pioneers By Dr. C. H. Pearson 

Twelve Nights in the Hunter’s Camp By Rev. Dr. William 

Barrows 

GALLANT DEEDS LIBRARY 4 vols. Illustrated 
Great Men and Gallant Deeds By J. G. Edgar 
Yarns of an Old Mariner By Mary Cowden Clarke 
Schoolboy Days By W. H. G- Kingston 
Sand Hills of Jutland By Hans Christian Andersen 

INVINCIBLE LIBRARY 4 vols. Illustrated 
The Young Invincibles By I. H Anderson 
Battles at Home By Mary G. Darling 
In the World By Mary G. Darling 
Golden Hair By Sir Lascelles Wraxhall Bart. 

LIFE-BOAT SERIES of Adventures 5 vols Illustrated 
Dick Onslow among the Red Skins By W H. G. Kingston 
The Young Middy By F. C. Armstrong 

The Cruise of the Frolic A Sea Story By W H. G. Kingston 
The Life Boat By R M. Ballantyne 
Antony Waymouth By W. H. G. Kingston 


Bold by all booksellers and sent by mail postpaid on receipt of price 

LEE AND SHEPARD Publishers Boston 



* * 


L B 


EE AND 


SHEPARD’S 



EVENTY-FIVE CENT * * 
♦ * JUVENILES 


Comprising new editions of the following popular Juveniles Bound in 
best English cloth bright colors Any volume sold separately 


CHARLEY AND EVA STORIES By Miss L. C. Thurston 
How Charley Roberts became a Man 
How Eva Roberts gained her Education 
Home in the West 
Children of Amity Court 

Miss Thurston writes with a purpose. She is an admirer of manly boys 
and womanly girls, and so carries her characters through scenes and 
situations that elevate and purify. The books are by no means slow, 
being full of adventures. 

GOLDEN PROVERB SERIES By Mrs. M. E. Bradley 
and Miss Kate J. Neely 
Birds of a Feather 

Fine Feathers do not make Fine Birds 
Handsome is that Handsome Does 
A Wrong Confessed is Half Redressed 
One Good Turn deserves Another 
Actions Speak Louder than Words 

Two capital story-tellers, “ birds of a feather,” have flocked together, 
and produced from six old proverbs six as bright and taking story-books 
as ever gladdened the hearts of Young America; showing, indeed, that 
“ handsome is that handsome does.” 

GOLDEN RULE STORIES By Mrs. S. C. B. Samuels 

The Golden Rule or Herbert 
The Shipwrecked Girl or Adele 
Under the Sea or Erie 
Nettie’s Trial 

The Burning Prairie or Johnstone’s Farm 
The Smuggler’s Cave or Ennisfellen 

Mrs. Samuels has written many attractive books. The scenes and 
incidents she portrays are full of life, action, and interest, and decidedly 
wholesome and instructive. 

SALT-WATER DICK STORIES By May Mannering 

Climbing the Rope The Little Spaniard 

Billy Grimes’s Favorite Salt-Water Dick 

Cruise of the Dashaway Little Maid of Oxbow 

Not all tales of the sea, as the title of the series would imply, but stories 
of many lands by a lady who has been a great traveller, and tells what she 
has seen, in a captivating way. 

UPSIDE-DOWN STORIES By Rosa Abbott 

Jack of all Trades Upside Down 

Alexis the Runaway The Young Detective 

Tommy Hickup The Pinks and Blues 

VACATION STORIES for Boys and Girls 6 vols. 
Illustrated 

Worth not Wealth Karl Keigler or The Fortunes 

Country Life of a Foundling 

The Charm Walter Seyton 

Holidays at Chestnut Hill 

GREAT ROSY DIAMOND STORIES for Girls 

6 vols. Illustrated 

The Great Rosy Diamond Minnie or The Little Woman 

Daisy or The Fairy Spectacles The Angel Children 
Violet a Fairy Story Little Blossom’s Reward 


Sold by ali booksellers and sent by mail postpaid on receipt of price 

LEE AND SHEPARD Publishers Boston 



On fine paper, profusely illustrated, and bound in white, black, and gold, 
with new and original dies, making very attractive books 
Per volume, $1.50 New edition 

ADVENTURES OF A CHINAMAN By J ules Verne 
50 full-page illustrations 

This is one of the most entertaining of this author’s remarkable stories. It 
abounds in exciting adventures, and in humorous situations excels all his other 
books. 

“ In this volume he gives a full rein to his lively fancy, and the result is a 
book that will compare with any of his preceding works in the matter of 
pleasure to be derived from its pages. The Flowery Kingdom offers a fertile 
field for a writer such as he is, and he has made it the scene of incidents that 
show his fertility of invention, his keen sense of humor, and his faculty for 
imparting valuable information, garnished with much that is extravagant and 
only designed to amuse.” — Budget. 

FIGHTING PHIL The Life of Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, by 
Headley With full-page illustrations 

“ The present volume is one of the most successful that the author has 
produced. It is the life-record of a brave and good man, who was honored, 
admired, and respected. Little Phil Sheridan endeared himself to the hearts 
of a nation whose offspring should learn the story of his life. The work 
is very handsomely printed, illustrated and bound, and, while it is one of the 
most desirable gifts for a boy, it is a thoroughly historical and readable work, 
suitable for all who wish to learn the facts in the career of a noble American 
hero.” — American Hebrew. 

PERSEVERANCE ISLAND or The Robinson Crusoe of 
the Nineteenth Century By Douglas Frazar With full-page illus- 
trations 

“ It is an admirably told story, full to repletion of the most exciting adven- 
ture. Its author was cast away alone upon a desolate island in mid-ocean, 
and all his shipmates lost. The writing is a history of his life and adventures. 
This history was launched in the balloon, and reached civilization and the 
public in the manner specified. The old Robinson Crusoe was a bungler, but 
this modern specimen was an adept in all mechanical contrivance, and the 
young reader will be not only entertained, but instructed, in the chapters. 
How he prepared fresh water, how he made gunpowder, lucifer matches, 
edged tools, built houses and boats, is graphically told in these pages.” 
— Biter-Ocean. 

OUR STANDARD-BEARER Oliver Optic’s Life of Gen. 
U. S. Grant With full-page illustrations 

“ This volume is specially adapted to the youth of the country, but is 
equally, if not more, interesting to those of maturer years. It is just such a 
book as will be a favorite in the library of any household, be that library large 
or small. It gives fine entertainment and capital instruction. The scenes 
and incidents of the great general’s infancy, childhood, and youth are told in 
a pleasant way, while the later incidents of his eventful career are described 
with a faithful and graphic pen.” — Keokuk Democrat. 

LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS From Washington to 
Cleveland With new portraits. 

A very interesting series of short biographies of the Presidents, describing 
the principal events of each administration in an entertaining and readable 
manner, giving just the information that is needed to convey, in brief, the 
history of the United States, and affording in compact form a ready reference 
book on national affairs. 

*** Sold by all booksellers, or sent by mail ofi receipt 0/ price 

LEE AND SHEPARD Publishers Boston 








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